SOUTH Korea may still be averaging more than 600 Covid cases a day but the domestic travel market has stayed resilient throughout.
In an update from Seoul, Min Yoon, CEO of Tidesquare and co-founder of WiT Seoul, said, “People have started travelling again domestically. Some specific destinations such as Jeju island and beaches are full of people, and the staycation market is quite good. Those travel agencies targeting domestic are seeing bookings exceeding that of 2019.”
Nevertheless, it cannot make up for the shortfall in outbound business with most travel agencies suffering more than a 90% drop in sales, said Min.
The industry’s hopes rose this week with news that the South Korean government has secured enough vaccines to inoculate almost its entire population — twice. According to this report, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said it signed an additional deal with Pfizer Inc. for a further 40 million doses, bringing the total it has procured from various manufacturers to 192 million, or enough for 99 million people. The country has a population of 52 million.
“This is the key to opening borders. The government hopes to reach herd immunity before November. If so, we hope to travel again by then.”
Tidesquare, which made a full pivot to domestic during Covid, is cautiously preparing for a return to outbound from the third quarter. “We are targeting pent-up demand and sending messages to customers to book outbound products with full flexibility. We are also preparing new products we can enter the market with once borders open.”
During Covid, several market forces have played out which will determine the shape of the Korean travel market post-Covid.
For example, Min said, Korean OTAs which focused on local accommodation before the pandemic became stronger during the last 14 months and could be stronger competitors for the global OTAs after the pandemic.
The big traditional travel agencies which had been focusing more on group tour packages have invested in online booking systems. “Whether their efforts will be successful or not, there is no doubt that the OTA market in Korea will be crowded again,” he said.
The key challenges facing the Korean travel industry remains “keeping good talented people in the industry, especially good engineers. Probably it is the same everywhere else”.
And the biggest opportunity? “Travel industry players in Korea were judged as slow in digitalisation and data marketing. The pandemic provided a good opportunity to catch up.
After the pandemic, It will be judged once again who took advantage of this difficult time to make it a blessing in disguise.”
• Featured image credit (Famous white horse-shaped lighthouse on Jeju Island): Anney_Lier/Getty Images
