Lotte Hotel wins top prize at 2026 Lotte Awards for APEC summit success

Lotte held its 2026 Lotte Awards ceremony Monday at Lotte Hotel World. Lotte Hotel & Resort took the grand prize for its role in successfully hosting major official events at the 2025 APEC summit.

Lotte Hotel & Resort handled protocol and catering for key events at the APEC leaders' summit held in Gyeongju last year, including the official dinner. The company deployed more than 400 culinary and service staff to the site and conducted protocol service training for local hotel employees in Gyeongju, earning recognition for strengthening its brand competitiveness.

Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin said the award-winning cases on display Monday clearly demonstrated the group's "DNA of challenge." He urged affiliates to "trust in our underlying strength and raise the group's competitiveness through bold challenges."

In the sales and marketing category, top honors went to Lotte GRS for a collaboration product with "Culinary Class Wars" contestant Napoli Matfia, Lotte Wellfood for driving growth of the Kancho brand, and Lotte Advanced Materials for maintaining its No. 1 market share through the adoption of eco-friendly plastic TV housings. Lotte Chemical Basic Materials won the R&D award for developing a polypropylene product for battery separators.

The brand and CX design category, newly introduced this year, went to Lotte E&C for building the high-end residential brand "Le El" and to Lotte GRS for laying the groundwork for global expansion through a spatial renewal initiative. The challenge category — designed to encourage a culture of bold attempts — was claimed by Lotte Fine Chemical for developing an eco-friendly superabsorbent polymer. The win, the company's first in four years since 2022, came despite falling short of the product's original goal of diaper applications; judges praised Lotte Fine Chemical for successfully pivoting to soil moisture retention as a new, high-value-added market.