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Lotte Members Partners with UnionPay to Boost Global Membership for Chinese Tourists
🇰🇷 South Korea /Economy & Trade

Lotte Members Partners with UnionPay to Boost Global Membership for Chinese Tourists

From Dong-A Ilbo · () Korean

Translated from Korean, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources New plan
  • Lotte Members partnered with UnionPay International to strengthen its global membership program for Chinese tourists visiting South Korea.
  • The move aims to capture the growing spending power of Chinese visitors, who have significantly increased their expenditure in South Korea, particularly on luxury goods.
  • Lotte Members will offer simplified point program enrollment and benefits at key retail locations, leveraging data for personalized marketing to encourage repeat visits and boost the tourism industry.

South Korea's Lotte Members is enhancing its global membership services, specifically targeting Chinese tourists amid a surge in their spending within the country. The company announced a strategic partnership with UnionPay International on Tuesday to bolster its offerings for Chinese visitors.

Official data from the Korea Tourism Organization shows that foreign tourist card spending in South Korea reached 2.1 trillion won in May, a 67.1% increase year-on-year. Chinese tourists have been the primary drivers of this growth, tripling their spending compared to the previous year. This boom is largely attributed to the weak won, making luxury items and high-end goods more affordable for Chinese shoppers.

Lotte Members aims to capitalize on this trend by expanding its loyalty ecosystem. Following the launch of a promotional page for Japanese customers last month, the company is now focusing on the Chinese market. Chinese tourists can now easily sign up for L.POINT, Lotte Members' loyalty program, via email authentication before arriving in South Korea. Upon arrival, they can seamlessly use their mobile devices to earn points and receive discounts at major Lotte outlets, including department stores, duty-free shops, and supermarkets.

Global membership expansion will be central to building the L.POINT global ecosystem, linking not only member acquisition but also the loyalty of overseas customers to domestic industry revitalization.

— Lotte Members representativeDescribing the strategic importance of the partnership for building a global loyalty ecosystem and revitalizing domestic industries.

The company plans to analyze the collected data to develop hyper-personalized marketing strategies based on nationality, age, and spending habits. This initiative goes beyond one-time shopping incentives, seeking to establish L.POINT as a robust tourism infrastructure that encourages repeat visits and contributes to the revitalization of the distribution and tourism sectors.

A Lotte Members representative stated, "Global membership expansion will be central to building the L.POINT global ecosystem, linking not only member acquisition but also the loyalty of overseas customers to domestic industry revitalization." The company anticipates that the combined infrastructure of both UnionPay and Lotte Members will accelerate the growth of the bustling inbound tourism market in South Korea.

We expect the combination of our infrastructures to become a catalyst that further accelerates the growth of the vibrant inbound tourism market.

— Lotte Members representativeExpressing anticipation for the partnership's impact on the South Korean tourism sector.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Dong-A Ilbo in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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