"OTA Overseas Travel Sales Surpass Pre-COVID-19 Levels"

Online Platform Transaction Amount Reached 677.2 Billion KRW in December Last Year
Over 50% Increase Compared to 2019... Record High Performance

As the COVID-19 endemic (periodic outbreak of infectious diseases) leads to a significant increase in demand for overseas travel, global online travel platforms that allow reservations for accommodations, leisure, and activities are enjoying a boom. It has been revealed that the monthly transaction amount through these companies in South Korea has reached an all-time high.

Photo by WiseApp·Retail·Goods

According to WiseApp, Retail, and Goods, application and retail analysis services, as of December last year, the amount paid by South Korean citizens aged 20 and over on online overseas travel platforms using credit cards, debit cards, bank transfers, and micropayments was approximately 677.2 billion KRW per month.

This amount is based on a sample survey of payments made on Booking Holdings (Agoda + Booking.com), Airbnb, Trip.com, Expedia (Hotels.com + Expedia), MyRealTrip, KKday, and others. The monthly payment amount on online overseas travel platforms increased by more than 50% compared to 428.4 billion KRW in December 2019, before the outbreak of COVID-19, marking a record high. Compared to December 2021 (233.9 billion KRW), it nearly tripled.

The payment amounts exclude corporate transactions (B2B) such as corporate cards, corporate bank transfers, hotel management services, information provision services, cash transactions, gift certificates, payments made at directly operated hotels, and simple payment amounts. The transaction amount could increase further if the user sample is expanded.

Online overseas travel platforms were hit hard in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. In March 2020, the monthly payment amount bottomed out at around 24 billion KRW, and it never exceeded 100 billion KRW per month until the end of that year. Since then, it recovered to the 200 billion KRW level from June 2021 and began to rebound from March last year (293.4 billion KRW). From the second half of last year, when overseas travel movements became full-scale, transaction amounts have exceeded 500 billion KRW, outperforming pre-COVID-19 results.

With the increase in non-face-to-face demand due to COVID-19, the travel industry has seen the activation of mobile travel apps and travel methods minimizing contact with others gain popularity. With advances in technology and services, the share of online travel platforms in reservations and payments is expected to grow steadily. According to the Korea Tourism Organization, the share of online distribution channels in the global tourism industry is expected to expand from 60% in 2017 to 72% by 2025. In particular, the growth of platform markets that mediate travel products and services is expected to be prominent. There is also an analysis that the online travel reservation platform market size will expand to 89.8% by 2027.

Domestic online travel platforms are also growing in scale. Yanolja's sales increased from 247.4 billion KRW in 2019 to 374.8 billion KRW in 2021, and operating profit rose from -13.5 billion KRW to 53.7 billion KRW during the same period. Similarly, hereUdae's sales jumped from 102.7 billion KRW to 204.9 billion KRW, and operating profit increased from 7.2 billion KRW to 15.5 billion KRW over the same period.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.