At WiT Seoul held in early April, a panel of investors discussed what it would take to capture the hearts and dollars of South Korean travellers in an increasingly competitive travel space.

It naturally distilled down to the core importance of harnessing data and analytics to better understand customers to deliver more relevant products. But that only scratched the surface of what it might take to win in this burgeoning market.

The panel discussion also touched on the importance of how to overcome the seasonality of travel, by breaking out of silos and diversifying your products to keep customers coming back.

One key area of interest across all investors is how AI and data will continue to change the way in which consumers find and book their travel products. Said Ryan Lee, CEO & managing partner, Dunamu & Partners, “we’re going to see that those players that are well equipped with these technologies will win the game.

“I’d say those players who close transactions like flights and tickets… and organise such data in a usable way… with a commodity like technology, you can take advantage of the ability to cross-sell downstream.”

He added, “Globally, we’ve started seeing a lot of global names using this technology pretty smoothly. I can see performance improving in terms of conversion ratios from that technology.”

Ryan Lee (Dunamu & Partners) emphasised the importance and value of collecting quality, structured data

Being able to target customers at a sweet spot, when they are most likely to be thinking about travel, will be the key to not just maximising revenue, but also making any marketing efforts far more efficient. This is particularly true of the travel industry where, despite high spend, people seldom think of planning and booking travel on a daily basis.

Read the full article here