Tripvitoz, Jimcarry, and Others Selected as '2023 Best Tourism Ventures'

'2023 Tourism Venture Day' Event... Awards for 34 Companies
"Strengthening Investment to Help Tourism Ventures Grow into Global Innovative Companies"

The government will discover innovative tourism business models and select outstanding venture companies that have led the tourism industry.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced on the 20th that it held the ‘2023 Tourism Venture Day’ event at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul in Jongno-gu, Seoul, together with the Korea Tourism Organization, and awarded excellent tourism ventures.

Since 2011, the Ministry and the Korea Tourism Organization have launched the tourism venture project to discover innovative business ideas in the tourism sector and nurture them as future growth engines, identifying 1,638 tourism venture companies to date. Every year, they evaluate the number of jobs created by nurtured companies, sales revenue, investment attraction scale, and contribution to the tourism industry to select the ‘Tourism Venture of the Year.’

The selection categories include five support projects and 11 sectors: ▲Tourism Venture Contest ▲Tourism Accelerating Program ▲Tourism Global Challenge Program ▲Tourism Plus TIPS ▲Tourism Enterprise Innovation Voucher Project.

In particular, this year, a new ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) category was established for growth tourism ventures to seek sustainable development of the tourism industry by considering environment, society, and governance in addition to financial evaluation. Seven top companies received the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award, and 27 other companies were awarded the President of the Korea Tourism Organization Award.

Seven companies were selected as the top performers. Tripbitos, selected in the Growth Tourism Venture - Business Growth category, operates an accommodation reservation platform based on video content, having built a reservation system for one million accommodations worldwide, significantly increasing sales this year compared to the previous year, earning high praise. Jimcarry, in the Growth Tourism Venture - Job Creation category, operates luggage storage and transportation services for travelers at train stations and airports, notably creating many new jobs.

Also, RainforCompany, selected in the Early Tourism Venture category, is a premium mobility service provider offering subscription-based regular and repetitive vehicle usage services, differentiating its tourism business model from traditional taxi or rental car services, which attracted the judges’ attention.

Furthermore, TravelWallet in the Tourism Global Challenge category provides real-time currency exchange and commission-free payment services for 45 currencies in 70 countries, accelerating overseas service expansion by establishing a Singapore branch this year. TripSoda, in the Tourism Accelerating Program category, is a platform where users can find travel companions, share travel information, and purchase travel products, showing significant growth recently in monthly active users (MAU) and other metrics.

Additionally, Banryeosaenghwal was selected in the Tourism Plus TIPS category, and A&N was chosen in the Tourism Enterprise Innovation Voucher category.

Minister Yoo In-chon of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism stated, “The government aims to attract 20 million foreign tourists and achieve tourism revenue of 24.5 billion dollars in 2024.” He added, “We will systematically support and strengthen investment so that tourism ventures, which are at the heart of tourism industry innovation, can grow beyond leading our tourism industry to become global innovative companies.”

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