South Korean duty free stores are seeing their sales increase, despite a plunge in the number of Chinese tourists visiting the country amid strained relations between Seoul and Beijing. 
 
According to the association of South Korean duty free stores on Thursday, the number of foreign customers came to less than one-million-60-thousand last month. It is down about 50 percent from the same month last year, mainly due to a drop in the number of group tours from China. 
 
However, duty free stores saw their sales to foreign customers grow eight-point-eight percent year-on-year to nearly 694 million U.S. dollars in July. 
 
Duty free shops’ foreign tourist sales dropped from nearly 900 million dollars in February to 500 million dollars in April. However, sales began to recover from May and remained on an upward track for three consecutive months to near 700 million dollars. 
 
The recovering sales are thanks to large-quantity purchases by Chinese vendors.
 
The per-person sales posted by foreign tourists doubled from 333 dollars in July last year to 655 dollars.