The entire hotel stay — now mobile and contactless
Kakao × ONDA: Hotel Digital Transformation Success + 500% Direct Booking Surge
- ONDA and Kakao team up to digitize hotels and boost direct bookings
- The entire hotel stay — now mobile and contactless
- KakaoTalk emerges as a new lodging reservation channel
(Press Release — Sept 11, 2024) ONDA is driving successful hotel digital transformation and direct booking growth through its partnership with Kakao.
The flagship example: Yangyang Grandbay by Sorta Suites (hereafter Yangyang Grandbay), which opened last month. The property offers a fully mobile, contactless experience — from reservation to checkout — powered by ONDA and the KakaoTalk platform.
No matter where guests book — including KakaoTalk Reservations — Yangyang Grandbay sends the room door lock password via KakaoTalk about an hour before check-in. The password is encrypted for secure delivery.
On arrival, guests can check in at ONDA's unmanned kiosk. From there, everything they need — ▲hotel guide ▲parking registration ▲housekeeping requests ▲in-room Wi-Fi — is available through the KakaoTalk channel.
Notably, Yangyang Grandbay has no in-room phones. Guests ask questions via 1:1 KakaoTalk chat. From online booking to check-in, entry, and room service — the entire hotel stay is mobile and contactless.
One guest wrote: "KakaoTalk made parking registration, room service, and checkout so easy."
ONDA&Song, which operates Yangyang Grandbay, has rolled out the same system at six other properties including Sorta Suites Sokcho World Sky and Sorta Stay Konkuk. The company plans to deploy it across 2,000 additional rooms — including ▲Busan Seomyeon Prugio City Signature ▲Busan Songdo Heaven The View ▲Pyeongtaek Godeok Travant Prugio City.
The ONDA-Kakao collaboration doesn't stop there. ONDA is the lodging partner for KakaoTalk Reservations — a direct booking service with 1.2 million followers.
On the 15th, KakaoTalk Reservations sent a Yangyang Grandbay promotion alert to followers. Bookings jumped more than 10× compared to a typical weekday.
ONDA has been running lodging promotions through KakaoTalk Reservations since Q2 2023. Revenue from the channel has grown nearly 5× in one year. KakaoTalk is now a genuine sales channel for accommodations.
"Without KakaoTalk Reservations and the KakaoTalk channel, our labor costs would've been at least double," said Jeon Ah-young, COO of ONDA&Song. "Both guests and staff are getting a better hotel experience."
ONDA is a hospitality tech and data company that covers roughly 60–70% of Korea's online room distribution market. The company is Airbnb and Trip.com's first verified partner in Korea, and was named a 2024 Booking.com Advanced Connectivity Partner — cementing strong alliances with global tech giants.
ONDA also became the first Korean company to appear on Skift's Global PMS Vendor ranking, debuting at #34. Last year, it was selected for Korea's SME "Baby Unicorn Plus" program, and has been named to the Financial Times' "High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific" list three years in a row (2022–2024). <end>
