MyRealTrip pivoted hard from outbound tours to domestic hotels during COVID. Their hotel festival strategy and creator collabs turned skeptical properties into eager partners—now hotels call them first.
"Hotel managers find it hard to work with unfamiliar sales channels. A lot of them wouldn't even meet with us at first. Then we ran our hotel festival in the second half of last year and started seeing results. Now hotels reach out to us first—all the time." — Yoon Deok-eun, Accommodation & Transportation Team, MyRealTrip
Two years since COVID shut down international travel, the Korean hospitality industry has been hit hard—especially hotels that relied on business travelers and group tours from overseas.
But doing nothing wasn't an option. Korean hotels have been scrambling to capture domestic leisure demand since last year. ONDA has been working alongside them, accelerating digital transformation to weather the storm together.
Then in late 2021, one of ONDA's API partners started standing out in hotel sales. Through ONDA's accommodation API, hotels contracted with us can distribute inventory to 30+ sales channels with a single integration. One of those channels—MyRealTrip—saw its hotel booking graph shoot upward fast.
MyRealTrip started in 2012 as a guided tour platform. Before COVID, it focused on outbound travel. After, it pivoted aggressively to domestic Korean travel. What happened there last year?
ONDA went to find out.
Q. Hi! What do you do at MyRealTrip?
"Hi! I lead the Accommodation & Transportation Team—everything from MyReal Hocance packages, hotels, boutique stays in Jeju, to car rentals and Jeju taxi tours. I've been here about two years."
Q. How did you end up at MyRealTrip?
I spent four years at Daewoo International in overseas sales and new business. That planted the startup bug. I moved to an early-stage VC to help founders, then realized I wanted to be in the trenches myself. I studied a bunch of industries.
Travel stood out. The industry was growing fast, but trends were shifting even faster—repeat visits to the same destination, rise of experiential tourism. I felt the pull and joined MyRealTrip.
Q. And then COVID hit right after you joined...
Yeah. I learned real fast how hard it is to build something new at a startup. (laughs)
Q. Let's dive in. What does hotel sales mean for MyRealTrip?
Our core is tours and activities. We help travelers have great experiences at their destination. To do that well, they need flights, ground transport, activities—and obviously, a great place to stay.
We used to send users to other platforms for hotels. In April 2021, we started contracting hotels directly and launched 'MyReal Hocance.' It performed way better than expected. We realized we could sell hotel inventory under our own brand.
And most of the Korean hotels we work with are onboarded through ONDA Easysell.
Q. Why did you choose to work with ONDA?
We'd actually been working with ONDA on the pension side for a while. When we moved into hotels, our goal was simple: secure a competitive inventory pool as fast as possible.
Sure, we could've built our own tech and signed hotels one by one. But for speed? Partnering with someone like ONDA was way faster and more efficient.
Q. That's why a lot of companies use B2B SaaS. But why do hotels find MyRealTrip attractive?
Hotels that list on ONDA obviously need to actually sell rooms. Every OTA has its own angle, but MyRealTrip has two key strengths.
First, our customer spend is higher than most OTAs. These aren't just people looking for a place to crash—they're looking for unique experiences, add-on activities. So we don't position hotels as just lodging. We frame them as part of the travel experience itself.
Our 'MyReal Hocance' brand—curated hotel packages—is a perfect example of that.
Second, we're strong in Jeju. Most Jeju trips involve flights, and MyRealTrip is one of the few Korean OTAs that also sells airfare. We've also focused on Jeju tours and activities for years. So when someone books a Jeju flight or activity with us, they're naturally going to book accommodation too. For Jeju hotels, MyRealTrip is a direct line to high-intent customers.
Q. What was the hardest part working with hotels?
Hotel GMs aren't used to working with unfamiliar sales channels. A lot of them wouldn't even meet with us at first. Then we ran our hotel festival in the second half of last year and started seeing results. Now hotels reach out to us first—all the time. (laughs)
Q. Performance solves everything. Looking ahead, what kind of hotels will win with travelers?
Tours and activities got hammered by COVID, but in-hotel experiences held up better. Sure, there's always demand for cheap room-only deals. But demand for hotel content—experiences the hotel itself provides—is growing steadily.
I know hotels face physical constraints. But every hotel has room to develop unique content that sets it apart. Where hotels fall short, our team can help fill the gaps. We'd love to work with more of you.
That was our conversation with MyRealTrip, one of ONDA's API solution partners.
No matter the industry, a race to the bottom on price is a lose-lose game. Neighborhood PC bangs in Korea used to compete on ₩1,000, ₩900, ₩800 per hour—most went out of business. The ones that survived? "Best ramen in town" PC bangs with unique content.
You can't directly compare PC bangs to hotels. But the lesson holds: differentiation through experience beats price wars every time. MyRealTrip, ONDA's accommodation API partner, is building exactly that: a formula where booking through them means getting a different—better—experience.