Government to nurture high-tech tourism ventures

CEOs of tourism startups participate in the demo day event for the Korea Tourism Organization's startup accelerating program in December last year. / Courtesy of Korea Tourism Organization

By Jun Ji-hye

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) launched its annual project to nurture tourism startups with creative ideas Monday, beginning to receive applications from companies across the nation, the organization said.

The KTO will accept applications until May 24, and will select 30 tourism ventures that will benefit from its acceleration program.

The program is aimed at helping the promising startups to enhance their competitive power by offering initial investment and mentoring, among other kinds of support.

The program will be led by three companies ― Venture Square, Y&Archer and CNTTech ― that were selected as the startup accelerators by the organization in March.

Each of the three companies will choose 10 promising startups.

Venture Square that operates the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' tech incubator program for startup (TIPS) will be able to link the participants in the KTO's acceleration program to TIPS, as well as support systematic marketing campaigns, according to the organization.

Y&Archer is planning to run a program offering an empirical analysis of market structures, and another program supporting startups preparing to make inroads overseas.

CNTTech is set to offer an engineer matching program aimed at helping the participants advance their technologies.

The 30 companies selected as the beneficiaries of the accelerating program will be offered 50 million won ($41,000) in initial investment, in addition to consulting, mentoring and education.

Those selected as “excellent” firms during the program will be additionally offered up to 200 million won.

The KTO will also help the startups build broader human networks in the tourism industry and allow them to utilize big data possessed by the organization.

“The accelerating program jointly pushed for by the KTO and private investment institutions has been designed to boost digital transformation of the domestic tourism industry,” said Ahn Deok-soo who heads the tourism business promotion department at KTO.

“We hope many promising startups will apply for the program so it will be a chance for the industry, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, to make a new leap forward.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said it will expand beneficiaries of its scale-up program this year in a bid to support startups in their early stages as well as in the growth stages.

During his meeting with CEOs of eight tourism ventures in Seoul at the end of January, Minister Park Yang-woo vowed to support the startups, highlighting the need to apply fifth-generation (5G) networks and other Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies to the tourism industry.

He said increasing demand for travel and the rapid evolution of new technologies were creating new opportunities for tourism companies, especially for passionate startups that were unafraid of challenges.