The most successful Korean travel startup is Yanolja. It is the only travel tech unicorn in South Korea and is one of 18 startup Unicorns in Korea. It is the most popular mobile app in Korea for hotel reservations. In addition, they have self-service check-in kiosks and a room management system called Y FLUX RMS. They are officially the first Korean unicorn in the travel sector. They aim to have 1 million spaces by 2025.

Yanolja has incorporated new technologies such as AI, IoT, and VR into traditional lodging and leisure industries for the first time in Korea. They have already acquired travel companies such as Dable, an ad tech company; Interpark, a B2C eCommerce platform; DailyHotel, an online and mobile reservation site for hotels; Indian Hotel Tech firm eZee; and ZEN Rooms, a Southeast Asian budget hotel chain. Moreover, to further target the Southeast Asian market, Yanolja has partnered with Bnetworks. Bnetworks is an IoT company in Malaysia. They will collaborate to create a cloud-based hotel management solution that connects data across all services.

Yanolja Cloud

Yanolja Cloud is Yanolja’s cloud-based hospitality solution that offers B2B solutions for hotels. It is called Y FLUX, and it is a fully automated hotel management solution. Yanolja plans to drive the digital transformation of hotels, leisure, and residential spaces worldwide with this solution. The cloud solution will be able to satisfy the needs of partners, booking channels, and customers.

H2O Hospitality

Japan-based Korean Hospitality startup H2O Hospitality is an online and offline integrated hospitality management group focused on supporting lodging companies like hotels in the Korean and Japanese markets. They provide integrated solutions for managing facilities, such as reservation management, housekeeping, cleaning, facility management, and customer call service for hostels, guest houses, and hotels. The startup has been on the rise due to the pandemic as there has been a rise in demand for contactless and staffless operations at hotels.

H2O Hospitality provides full-scale accommodation management solutions with its cleaning helper platform WaHome. Its integrated hotel management system can reduce a hotel’s management fees by 50% and increase revenue by 30%. They completed their Series C round for $30 million, led by Kakao Investment, Korea Development Bank, Gorilla Private Equity, Intervest, and NICE Investment. To date, they have raised a total of $45 million.

H2O currently operates 8,000 accommodations, including hotels, ryokans, and guest houses in Tokyo, Seoul, Busan, Osaka, and Bangkok.

“H20 Hospitality is currently speaking with several global hotel chain companies to partner with their digital transformation and operation outside of Korea and Japan,” said the CEO of H2O Hospitality John Lee.

Tripbtoz

Korean travel startup Tripbtoz offers an app that allows users to share their travel videos. Through the videos uploaded on Tripbotz, other users can book hotels through the videos in real time. These videos help users get a better idea about their travel destination. The platform allows for filters for business or family travel. In addition, there are options to find animal-friendly hotels.

With Innovation (Yeogi Eottae)

Yeogi Eottae is a South Korean online hotel and mobile ticket booking service from With Innovation that made the news for accepting cryptocurrencies as payment on their platform. They have teamed up with cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb to create a payment platform. Therefore, cryptocurrency payments include Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ripple.

Yeogi Eottae Acquires MangoPlate

Yeogi Eottae bought MangoPlate to bring restaurant content onto its platform. MangoPlate is a restaurant recommendation platform with over 200,000 restaurants on its database. They are known for their curation by using AI technology to filter out fake reviews. The acquisition comes after Yeogi Eottae received feedback from its users who wanted a restaurant curation and reservation service on the platform.

allstay

Korean travel startup allstay is a hotel comparison app that offers users packaged holidays by comparing deals from other booking sites. They cover hotels as well as private accommodations in Asia and North America. Their focus in 2022 will be to look into mobile payments and integrate offline travel agency content.

KOZAZA

Korean travel startup KOZAZA is a home-sharing company that offers homestays in traditional Korean Hanoks and 14th-century Korean houses. They offer travelers to Korea a full cultural experience Airbnb can’t provide. Homestays are a traditional form of travel accommodation that allows for a deeper cultural experience than a hotel. Furthermore, they have over 1,000 Hanoks and work with the Seoul Tourism Organization and Visit Korea Committee. Aside from homestays, KOZAZA also offers guesthouses and supports Platform businesses via online marketing.

NomadHer

Korean startup NomadHer developed an app of the same name that helps women enjoy solo trips around the world without the need to worry. The app is for solo female travelers that offers information about safety and sanitary concerns when booking where to stay at night. In addition, the app allows female travelers to find other female travelers.

All listings have reviews written by women, and there is a community section where female travelers can share their travel stories. They partnered with the Seoul Tourism Foundation and have expanded to London and Paris.