Lotte Duty Free and Shilla Duty Free, South Korea’s two leading travel retailers, are competing with global rivals to operate duty-free shops at Australia’s Sydney Airport, whose sales last year totaled $247 million, industry sources said Thursday.

The two retailers are vying for duty-free concessions at the airport’s terminals, whose bids are open until June 12.

Lotte Duty Free, the biggest at home and the world’s fourth-largest in the industry after top-ranked DFS, LS Travel Retail and Dufry, aims to become No. 2 by next year.

The bid’s winner will be able to operate perfume and cosmetics shops from February next year to August 2021. The shops had been operated by the Swiss operator Nuance. Some 37.9 million people used the shops last year.

“We have engaged in an aggressive overseas push to grow into a global duty-free operator. To that end, we will make efforts to win the duty-free concessions at Sydney Airport, which is expected to grow on the back of Chinese travelers,” an official at Lotte said.

The company made inroads into Indonesian and Singaporean travel retail markets in 2012 and is slated to open its shop at A.B. Won Pat International Airport in Guam next month. (Yonhap)