KTSC Singapore residency members and local travel industry stakeholders participate in a networking event during Demo Day in Singapore in October 2023. Photo provided by Korea Tourism Organization.
118 travel tech startups to benefit from Global Incubator Programme
Lee Hye-rin
The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) is stepping up efforts to discover local startups in the tourism industry and help them expand globally.
The KTO, in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, plans to open a Korea Tourism Startup Center (KTSC) in Singapore in August 2022, followed by one in Tokyo in December 2022. These centers aim to help Korean tourism tech ventures expand into global markets.
Through its annual startup incubator program, KTSC provides business development opportunities and access to local networks vital to the regional ecosystem, including select venture capital firms, investment professionals, local tourism boards and leading corporations.
Additionally, the center will provide marketing strategy and localization consulting and facilitate meetings to foster startup growth.
At our two existing bases in Singapore and Japan, last year we realised 396 overseas business matching cases, the establishment of local subsidiaries, the attraction of foreign investment, and approximately 80 cases of global expansion, including the conclusion of partnerships.
Residency members from KTSC in Tokyo and Japanese travel industry professionals participated in a networking event in Tokyo on December 5, 2023. Courtesy of Korea Tourism Organization
The KTO launched the Tourism Startup Global Challenge Program in 2020, and since then, a total of 118 Korean tourism startups have joined the initiative, which aims to help them gain industry support to enter overseas markets, receive grants, and access business partners.
As a result, 67 start-ups achieved combined sales of more than 236 billion won ($170 million), created 737 jobs, and secured 69.2 billion won in foreign investment.
The most notable of these startups is LoadSystems, the world’s first company to introduce a mobile passport identification system linked to payment services.
Road System was founded in 2015 and offers a mobile passport and payment service called “Trip PASS.” The company achieved sales of KRW 830 million last year and won the Fintech BOI and CES 2024 Innovation Awards for Cybersecurity. It also has nine domestic patents and five overseas patents registered in the U.S. and Japan.
Notably, the company introduced ‘Jamboree Pay’ last year at the World Scout Jamboree event held in South Korea, which brought together over 43,000 young scouts from 159 countries around the world.
This was Jamboree’s first ever integrated payment service, enabling users to make payments without cash or credit cards anywhere in the host country. Jamboree attendees could pay with their Jamboree ID by linking their ID card to online and offline payment services.
Another major player is Globaleur, an AI-based trip planning and itinerary management solution for airlines and global travel agencies. Since joining KTSC Singapore, the company has won Singapore Airlines’ annual AppChallenge open innovation competition twice and is inking partnerships with airlines around the world.
The incubator project comes amid an ongoing tourism trend where demand for “smart tourism” driven by mobile services by small, independent groups is growing rapidly.
According to a government survey, there has been an increase in tourists in their teens to 30s visiting Korea individually or in small groups after being exposed to Korean content and traditional culture, and overall satisfaction is also high.
In this March 2023 photo, KTSC Singapore residency members and local travel industry stakeholders attend a networking event in Singapore. Courtesy of Korea Tourism Organization
However, the survey also revealed that transportation and language barriers remain obstacles to the travel experience, highlighting the need to make travel-related information more available in multiple languages.
In response, South Korea announced a series of plans to boost tourism to Japan at an inter-ministerial meeting on June 17.
The Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism plan to eventually attract 30 million tourists per year and generate $30 billion in tourism revenue by 2027.
The government will strive to improve every aspect of the foreign travel experience in Korea with the contributions of startups at every stage, from airport departures to local tourism, luggage delivery, post-translation for map apps, and car rental services in major cities.
For example, Zim Carry and Goodlugg provide luggage delivery services from train stations and airports to hotels, making travel more convenient for tourists.
In addition, foreign tourists can currently only recharge their transportation cards with cash when using buses and subways in Korea, and most cities do not have short-term public transportation passes like other cities around the world. Therefore, the government plans to popularize Road System’s Trip Pass, a prepaid mobile transportation card service exclusively for foreigners upon arrival in Korea, to make travel more convenient.
Foreign tourists dressed in hanbok, the traditional Korean dress, pose in front of Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul on June 13. The number of tourists from the United States, Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore who visited South Korea in the first four months of 2024 surpassed the pre-pandemic record high of 2019, according to data from the Korea Tourism Organization. Yonhap News Agency
Additionally, the country plans to enlist the help of tourism tech startups such as Movv, short for “Move as a VIP,” to revitalize local tour programs using small vehicles for tourists traveling in small groups.
According to a government survey of visitors to Japan, many foreign tourists traveling in small groups of 15 or less prefer to plan sightseeing trips using rental cars because it is difficult to use public transportation. However, travel agencies have expressed concerns that the use of buses will be restricted when planning sightseeing trips for foreigners.
In response, the government plans to simplify rental car contract procedures to invigorate local tourism programs that utilize small rental cars, which are in high demand among foreign tourists, and to promote small vehicle services for foreigners, such as mobility services “Movv” and “GroundK.”
Regarding tax refunds, the government plans to cooperate with companies such as Success Mode, which provides a tax-free service exclusively for foreign tourists through a mobile application called Korea Duty Free Payment, to allow foreigners to check their duty-free items on their mobile phones and receive a tax refund when they leave the country.
Kim Dong-il, head of the Korea Tourism Organization’s Tourism Industry Headquarters, said, “As the tourism industry’s overseas expansion becomes more likely, the Korea Tourism Organization will do its utmost to foster the next generation of global travel technology companies by providing opportunities for market entry and creating new business models.”
This article was produced in collaboration with the Korea Tourism Organization.
