I think I’ve still got garlic on my breath from my 36-hour whiz biz trip to Seoul. They consume raw garlic there like they do their gadgets.

Must say bulgogi (left) wrapped in green leaf topped with raw garlic and soy bean paste is yummy-licious and because everyone’s doing it, no one notices it – and this is why in Seoul, it’s not love but garlic that’s in the air, oh oh oh oh …

Call it the Gangnam effect but everyone (including me) is thinking of how to make the next beyond-viral video.

The driver who took me to the Hotel Shilla from the airport had sunglasses which looked like Psy’s. He was dressed very smartly in tight fitting black pants, an orange shirt and black vest. His hair was gelled and carefully teased up at the fringe and on the crown.

For some reason, he kept peering at me in the mirror. His eyes would look at the road and then carefully sidle up to the mirror and when he caught me looking at him, he quickly looked away.

We played this “pretend not to look” game for a stretch but after a time – well, it’s a 90-minute ride so we had time – he blurted out, “Are you high status?”

“Huh?” I asked in the universal traveller grunt of “I don’t understand”.

“Are you high status?” he repeated. “You have private car, everyone take bus.”

It then dawned on me that he thought I was some sort of important person because out of the group of travel agents who were at the airport waiting for the bus to take them to their hotel, I had been given a private transfer.

I hated shattering his illusion but I explained that it was because I was late and I had to be taken straight to a media briefing being given by Robert Bailey (right), CEO of Abacus International, which was holding its Subscriber Conference in Seoul.  “He high status, not me,” I explained. 

You could hear his visible gasp of disappointment. He probably had hoped I was some kind of celebrity talent scout who could make him instantly famous.

Anyway, we got talking. He tells me he buys everything online. His clothes, food, gadgets. “Cheaper,” he says. Travel? “No. Travel not like food.”

And therein lies the paradox. South Korea has the world’s highest high speed Internet penetration – 9.8 million people, or 0.6% of the world’s population.

Its Internet speed is four times the world average. More important than it, it is available almost everywhere, on tap.

As Abacus’ Bailey puts it, “It’s the poster child of connectivity.”

But it is hardly the poster child of online travel. Travel distribution is traditional and is dominated by wholesalers such as Hanatour and Modetour, with their large franchisee bases and agency affiliations.

“If you look at markets like Korea and Japan, which are very technologically advanced, there is a disconnect between tech adoption and travel innovation. Business processes are still very traditional and there’s an ingrained service culture,” said Bailey, when I brought the subject up with him later.

But he is convinced there is change happening. The convergence of technology at the device level, the propensity to travel, low cost airlines plus the desire to see the world – that’s all coming together to spark change, he believes. And all that was what was discussed at the Abacus conference yesterday in the sessions I attended.

My driver though was intent on sticking to his pet subject. “You know Psy?” he asked.

“I want to be like him,” he said, as he pushed his sunglasses up his nose, peered at me in the mirror, tossed his head and gave me the look. I almost expected to see him dance and drive.

And as he dropped me off at the Shilla, he said, “High status hotel.”