Hundreds of Chinese tourists waited in a queue to get on the elevators to Lotte Department Store’s duty free shop in central Seoul last Saturday afternoon.

The duty free shop on the top floors was bursting with Chinese customers snatching up Prada and Louis Vuitton bags for which they have to pay extra taxes at home.

Some 100,000 Chinese tourists, known as “youke” in Mandarin, are expected to stream into Korea during this week’s Labor Day holidays.

The Chinese government reduced the number of official Labor Day holidays from five to three (April 29 through May 1) in 2008, but the Korea Tourism Organization sees the nine days starting from last weekend through this weekend as the peak time for youke.

The KTO projects about 100,000 Chinese tourists, up 52.6 percent from last year, will visit during the nine days.

While tourists from Japan are decreasing, the number of Chinese visitors to Korea in the first three months of this year jumped 37.8 percent from a year ago to nearly 723,000 as the cruise ships between the two countries began operation earlier than usual and more chartered flights were available.

During the peak seasons, the youke spend over 10 billion won each day just on their credit cards.

Sales through “Yinlian cards,” or the credit card most widely used by the Chinese, in Korea doubled or tripled each year, according to BC Card, Yinlian’s Korean partner.

During the Chinese National Day holidays last October, the youke spent 31.6 billion won in three days using Yinlian cards in Korea, nearly double the 16.5 billion won they spent a year ago.

During the Chinese New Year’s holidays, Chinese visitors made Yinlian card purchases worth 14 billion won here in the three days to Feb. 11, up from 4.7 billion won a year ago and 1.4 billion won in 2011.

On Labor Day last year, the youke spent 5.1 billion won on their credit cards, more than double the 2.2 billion won they spent here on the previous Labor Day.

Sales through Yinlian cards in Korea snowballed from 4.5 billion won in 2006 to over 1 trillion won in the first nine months of last year and are expected to surge over 2 trillion won this year.

And the Chinese prefer paying in cash over credit cards.

Naturally, luring the Chinese is a year-round task for retailers, hotels and travel agencies here.

Aiming to attract some 500 high-profile government officials and businessmen from Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu as VIP customers, Shinsegae Department Store launched an exclusive VIP program for the Chinese starting Wednesday.

Whereas domestic retailers have so far held promotions for foreign tourists already in Korea, Shinsegae is reaching out to build a consistent, long-term relationship with potential Chinese customers.

The Chinese VIPs will get various benefits such as three to five percent discounts in addition to spa service, skincare service and hotel vouchers as gifts in return for their purchases, Shinsegae said.

All department stores including Lotte and Hyundai hold various promotional events featuring hallyu stars and special sales for youke.

The KTO is running a travel promotion titled “Hanguo deng ni,” which means “Korea awaits you” in Chinese, in which a Korean college student guides Chinese tourists through Seoul and collects their opinion on the city’s accommodation, transportation, food and shopping infra. Sixty Chinese tourist groups who applied via SNS were selected.

“The number of Chinese visitors hasn’t reduced much due to external factors such as North Korea’s military threats, but if the inter-Korean tension continues, it could decline after mid-May,” said Han Hwa-joon, head of KTO’s China team.

“We are preparing special promotions to recover the Chinese demand for trips to Korea.”

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)