South Korea's Lotte Hotel turns profitable in January-March 2025 thanks to recovery in foreign visitors

South Korea's Hotel Lotte announced its consolidated financial results for the January-March 2025 period on the 15th. Operating profit turned to a profit of 40.8 billion won (approximately 4.2 billion yen). The same period last year was in the red. Net profit for the period
The company also posted a profit of 34.6 billion won (US$36 million). However, sales revenue was down 12.0% year-on-year to 1.0396 trillion won (US$1.083 billion).
The hotel business was the driving force behind the company's performance in the January-March period. Lotte Hotels & Resorts' sales rose 10.4% year-on-year to 305.1 billion won.
The operating loss was significantly reduced to 2.2 billion won from a 14.7 billion won deficit in the same period last year. The increase in foreign guests led to improved performance.
Lotte Hotels & Resorts said, "The number of foreign guests staying at domestic hotels increased by about 7%, and room sales increased by 7.4% compared to the previous year."
"The global tourism market continues to recover, and we have demonstrated our strength in the United States and Vietnam, which have many hotel chains," he said.
On the other hand, the duty-free store division continued to be sluggish. Lotte Hotel's duty-free store sales for the January-March period
Sales were 636.9 billion won, down 22.3% from the same period last year. However, as the hotel business is expected to continue to grow, this is expected to have a positive effect on overall business performance going forward.
Based on its "asset-light" strategy, Lotte Hotels & Resorts plans to aggressively expand the number of hotels it operates both domestically and overseas. Currently, it operates Lotte Hotel Yangon, Samara, and Seattle.
The company also operates Lotte Hotel Seoul & Resort Gimhae, Lotte City Hotel Tashkent Palace, L7 West Lake Hanoi b By Lotte, and other hotels on a contract basis.
A Lotte Hotel & Resorts official said, "In addition to the increase in foreign guests, the new 'L7 Haeundae By Lotte,' which opened in June last year, is doing well.
"We expect the growth trend to continue throughout the year thanks to the diversification of our business through our new contract hotel 'L7 Cheongnyangni By Lotte' that will open in June this year, as well as senior business."