Chinese tourists are expected to spend over 30 trillion won ($29 billion) in the domestic market in 2020, according to industry data.

According to a report published by Hana Daetoo Securities, the number of Chinese tourists in South Korea will reach 15 million by 2020 based on an annual average growth rate of 20 percent. They are predicted to spend around 30 trillion won in that year to record a five-fold increase from last year’s 6 trillion won.

The 30-trillion-won figure corresponds to around 8 percent of the nation’s retail market, which is expected to reach 398 trillion won by 2020.

“Chinese tourists are becoming an important growth engine for the nation’s retail market,” said Park Jong-dae, a researcher at Hana Daetoo Securities.

The report said Chinese shoppers cited duty-free goods and cosmetics as their favorite items here. Shoppers spent around 1.9 trillion won on duty-free goods last year, and this will rise to 9.1 trillion won by 2020, accounting for a whopping 67 percent in the nation’s duty-free market.

The growth rate will slowly drop from this year’s 30 percent to 18 percent in 2020, the securities company estimated. Still, the rate will be higher than the nation’s overall retail market growth rate of 3 percent in 2020, the report said.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)