Lotte Department Store said on the 17th it will open official channels on China's Gaode Map and Dianping, the first move of its kind in Korea's retail industry.
Gaode Map is China's No. 1 maps application with about 1 billion monthly active users (MAU). Dianping is China's largest reviews and lifestyle platform with more than 700 million users. Both services are regarded as representative "super apps" that cover locals' everyday spending and travel routes.
Starting on the 18th, Lotte Department Store will open an official channel on Gaode Map to expand touchpoints with Chinese tourists. Among domestic retailers, Lotte Department Store is the only one to obtain Gaode Map's official verification tag, "official self-operated (官方自營)," securing channel credibility. It will also provide up-to-date event and brand information through a dedicated "Shopping News" feature and plans to allow users to naturally see related shopping content during destination searches.
On the 25th, it will also open an official channel on China's largest review platform, Dianping, to boost tourist inflows from the trip-planning stage. Lotte Department Store plans to heavily promote programs for foreigners such as "Global Shopping Week" in line with China's four major holiday seasons—Lunar New Year, Labor Day, summer vacation, and National Day. It also aims to capture the customer journey from trip preparation to actual store visits by linking with Gaode Map.
Lotte Department Store will roll out the service first at the main store and the Jamsil store, which see the highest number of foreign visitors. Based on performance, it plans to expand to stores nationwide.
Recently, Lotte Department Store has been posting meaningful results in attracting foreign tourists. The "Lotte Tourist Card," introduced at the main store late last year, has been well received, surpassing 40,000 issuances, and promotions held during Lunar New Year, China's biggest holiday, delivered the highest-ever results as sales to Chinese-speaking customers jumped 260% from a year earlier.
Park Sang-woo, Lotte Department Store's head of marketing, said, "As Chinese tourists' travel trends shift toward China's super apps, securing customer touchpoints before entry has emerged as a key marketing element," adding, "By building official channels on leading Chinese platforms, we will strengthen our competitiveness in attracting Chinese tourists and further solidify our position as a global shopping hub."