ONDA is revolutionizing Korea's hospitality industry
⚠️ All rights reserved. Cite this piece as 'ONDA (온다)' when quoting.
01. What does the right tech look like for small and midsize lodging operators?
Writer Cho Young-su, ONDA Product Planner
Editor So Mo-ra, ONDA Manager
Hi, I'm Damon, Head of Growth at ONDA (formerly T Port). I'm also a product planner building IT solutions here. We've written plenty about ONDA online, but we've never properly explained what we actually do. Even existing customers aren't always sure what services we offer. So I wanted to use this issue to walk you through ONDA's origin story and what we're building.
Since we're B2B (serving lodging operators, not travelers), some of this will get technical — but I'll keep it as clear as I can.
1. What is T Port / ONDA?
Our legal entity is T Port. Our service brand is ONDA.
T Port stands for Travel Port — the idea that we'd become a harbor for travel. Nice concept. Unfortunately, when you Google "T Port," we compete with electric kettles. OTL...
ONDA is pure Korean. The name came about when T Port acquired ZARI, a hostel/guesthouse management platform. We loved the name ZARI — it rolled off the tongue, and operators loved it too. Then a company that launched after us registered the ZARI trademark and sued us for infringement. We had to let it go. But we found something even better: ONDA.
ONDA logo draft
ONDA logo final
This time we made sure to secure the trademark. Lesson learned: when you're heads-down building product, it's easy to miss critical legal steps. If brand matters to your business, protect it early.
2. ONDA's business scope
: Our core customers are small and midsize lodging operators.
Online sales share by lodging category
Korea's lodging industry breaks down roughly into hotels & resorts, pensions (Korean countryside lodges), motels, and hostels & guesthouses. Luxury hotels and resorts dominate in scale, facilities, service, and talent. They also benefit from mature global IT infrastructure built for their segment.
Meanwhile, small hotels, pensions, motels, and hostels make up 97% of Korea's lodging properties — but their small size and geographic spread mean they've been largely left out of the tech revolution. That's where we come in. ONDA builds custom reservation management tools tailored specifically for this underserved majority.
3. ONDA customer segments: category-specific traits
We've lumped them together as "small and midsize lodging," but each category operates very differently. Here's a quick breakdown:
Category characteristics (※ Hostel figures are averages — some are quite large)
1) Pensions:
Older operators. Mostly domestic guests. Usually located outside Seoul. The owner often handles everything: sales, guest communication, operations, and maintenance.
2) Hostels & guesthouses:
Younger operators. Urban locations with good transit access. 50/50 mix of domestic and international guests. Lots of long-stay bookings. Often run dorm-style shared rooms.
3) Small hotels:
More task specialization. Front desk handles guests; housekeeping handles rooms. Larger properties may have F&B operations.
4) Motels:
Short booking windows. High volume of hourly rentals (daytime use).
Same industry, completely different needs. A one-size-fits-all solution won't work. Each segment needs a tool built for their workflow.
4. What do ONDA customers actually need?
When we interview property owners, their needs boil down to two things: grow sales and streamline operations. And sales takes up 70% of the mindshare.
So what does "sales" mean here? Let's break it down with a thought experiment. Say you just opened your own property — maybe a pension in Yangpyeong, or a foreigner-focused guesthouse, or an Airbnb apartment rental.
1) Growing sales
You've invested in a great property. Now what? You need bookings.
You throw up a website. You post on Instagram. Nothing happens. So you list on Naver, Yanolja, Yeogi Eottae, TMON, and a dozen other OTAs. The commissions hurt, but you need guests.
Great — bookings start rolling in. But now you've got a new problem. You have seven rooms (A, B, C, D, E, F, G). Room A gets booked on TMON. You're busy cleaning and miss the notification. Before you know it, Coupang and Yanolja also sell Room A for the same night. Overbooking.
This happens constantly at properties that sell unique, non-standardized rooms. Unlike chain hotels with identical room types, small properties can't easily swap guests between units. Every double-booking is a disaster. Angry customer. Painful refund. Ruined reputation.
To avoid this, you'd need to sit at your computer all day with ten tabs open — one for each OTA admin panel — manually closing availability on every site the moment a booking comes in, and reopening it when someone cancels. The more channels you sell on, the worse it gets. You can't leave your desk. And you still have to check guests in, clean rooms, buy groceries, and handle complaints.
If sales are slow, you're also constantly calling OTA account managers to adjust pricing, run promotions, and optimize visibility.
Unlike hotels with standardized room types, properties selling unique rooms face constant overbooking risks.
2) Streamlining operations
Okay, you've mastered channel management. Now you need to run the place.
To keep track of bookings across platforms, most operators turn to Excel and paper notes. Every reservation gets logged: date, room, guest name, party size, amount paid, amount due on arrival, special requests. Cancellations get deleted. Changes get updated. You're toggling between OTA dashboards, taking calls, and manually syncing everything.
If you're solo, it's manageable (barely). But if you have staff, coordination falls apart. Mistakes slip through. Bookings get missed. Guest requests get forgotten. Extra charges don't get collected. The chaos multiplies.
3) Payment reconciliation
You've sold rooms. Guests have stayed. Now you need to get paid.
Most OTAs don't pay you until after the guest checks out (since they can cancel anytime before arrival). And every platform has its own settlement cycle. If you're listed on seven sites, you're receiving payments on seven different schedules. Cash flow becomes unpredictable. Budgeting becomes a nightmare.
Everything I've just described? That's the reality for most small lodging operators in Korea. A few savvy owners figure it out and hit 90%+ occupancy with minimal effort. But they're the exception. The majority are drowning.
That's why ONDA exists.
We're a team of hospitality veterans and software engineers who've spent years in this industry. We understand the pain. And we've built the tech to solve it. How exactly? That's a story for next month — this post is already too long.
Thanks for reading.
[Series outline]
2019.09 What does the right tech look like for small and midsize lodging operators?
2019.10 A deep dive into ONDA's product lineup