The Asian travel market has seen a comprehensive recovery post-pandemic, but the direction and extent of this recovery vary. Particularly in the group travel sector, which traditionally relies heavily on offline customer acquisition, supply chain integration, and brand value, Japan and South Korea have shown a peculiar concentration effect of “shrinking markets but growing dominant players.” In contrast, Taiwan has seen a decline in the proportion of group travel but lacks a clear dominant consolidator, instead presenting opportunities for platform-type OTAs to enter the traditional group travel market.
Decline in Group Travel Proportion in Japan and South Korea
According to statistics from the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), in 2019, the number of South Korean outbound group travelers was 8.045 million, accounting for 28% of the total outbound trips. In the first three quarters of 2024, the number of outbound group travelers was 3.988 million. If projected based on the proportion of total outbound trips, the annual number of group travelers is expected to be around 5.397 million, with the proportion dropping to 19%, a nearly ten-percentage-point decline since the pandemic. It should be noted that South Korea’s outbound group travel statistics do not include MICE.
In Japan, data from the Japan Tourism Bureau in 2023 showed that the proportion of group travel, including MICE, was 16.2%. Referring to the MICE proportion of 9.2% in 2022, it is estimated that the proportion of pure sightseeing group travel in 2023 may have fallen below 10%.
Concentration of Leading Travel Agencies in Japan and South Korea
Despite the shrinking market, the market share of leading travel agencies has increased in the opposite direction. For example, HanaTour in South Korea had its number of group outbound travelers drop to 2.151 million in 2024, but its market share in terms of the number of people has reached 40% of the total group travel market, higher than the 36% in 2019.
Taking Japan’s largest travel market company H.I.S. as a reference, if we estimate that 16.2% of H.I.S.’s transaction amount of 281.6 billion yen in 2024 is for outbound group travel (45.6 billion yen), compared with the total transaction amount of 131.2 billion yen for group travel by 43 large travel agencies in Japan, H.I.S.’s market share in terms of transaction amount has reached 35%, also significantly higher than before the pandemic (though using data from 43 large agencies may slightly overestimate the market share).
Taiwan: Incomplete Concentration and a Longer Transition Period
In contrast, the structural changes in Taiwan’s group travel market are more ambiguous and slow. According to the Tourism Bureau, in 2024, the total expenditure for outbound trips was 101.91 billion New Taiwan dollars. If the proportion of group travel is the same as in 2023 (about 25%), the expenditure for group travel is about 25.48 billion. Further considering that about 30% of the tourism expenditure is for destination consumption and 70% is for tour fees, it can be estimated that the actual tour fee market for outbound group travel is 17.84 billion. Compared with Lion Travel’s tour fee income of 26.89 billion in 2024, the corresponding market share is about 15%.
In 2019, under the same口径, the total expenditure for outbound trips was 81.75 billion, the proportion of group travel was 35%, and 70% of the tour fee was 20.03 billion. Calculated based on Lion Travel’s transaction amount of 30.16 billion that year, the market share was also 15%.
Judging from the situations in Japan and South Korea, when the main travel agencies have stable per capita consumption and traffic control capabilities, they will naturally expand their market share. However, the leading players in Taiwan’s market have not shown significant concentration, which may be related to the incomplete maturity of the degree of online channelization and platform integration efficiency.
Online Sales Capability as the Key Gap
Such structural differences are likely related to the maturity of travel agencies’ online sales and traffic management, according to Hai Ze Capital.
Taking South Korea as an example, HanaTour’s APP monthly active user number at the end of 2024 was 590,000. If the total number of Mobile active users is added, it reaches 1.22 million. Compared with Trip.com (1.37 million) and Triple (650,000), it has a certain scale. Although H.I.S. has not disclosed the number of active users, according to the financial report data disclosed in the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year (as of January 2025), its online order transaction proportion has reached 41%. If corporate MICE orders are excluded, the proportion of online order transactions reaches 50%.
In contrast, Lion Travel in Taiwan has not officially disclosed its APP monthly active data and the proportion of online orders in its financial reports. The official data is unknown, but we can refer to the data from Sensor Tower and Data. ai to roughly understand the position of its APP relative to competitors.
This phenomenon has made it possible for OTA platforms to fill the gap during the post-pandemic structural relaxation period. For example, the monthly active users of Easitour’s APP at the end of 2024 were close to 600,000. Compared with HanaTour in South Korea, which has nearly twice the population size, this is not low. According to its publicly available data, the proportion of APP orders is 70%, close to Trip.com (70% for the international platform part) and even higher than Booking.com (about 55%), reaching the international OTA level.
The traffic advantage can not only be reflected in the penetration rate of high-frequency products such as air tickets and accommodation. In the group travel market, even if only as a distribution platform without self-operation, OTA can reconfigure the value of the supply chain through consumer-side user algorithm acquisition, inventory aggregation capabilities, and penetration into small and medium-sized travel agencies. Compared with traditional B2B wholesalers such as Coca-Cola Travel Agencies, OTA platforms rely less on business personnel and physical channels for expansion. Instead, they “digitize inventory” and distribute it to traffic (customer groups) that traditional group travel cannot reach, completing scaling at a lower marginal cost.
Each Blossoms in Their Own Garden
Group travel will not disappear because some demands are structural: the price advantage based on scale, the expectation of safety and convenience when facing specific destinations, and the time and psychological costs saved by outsourcing planning responsibilities. These three factors form the basis that group travel cannot be completely replaced.
It is also hard to say whether Japan and South Korea will move towards Taiwan’s OTA penetration model. If Korean platforms like Yanolja and Triple, or Japanese platforms like Rakuten Travel and Jalan, start building group travel distribution platforms, they may have the potential to scale up quickly. Or whether Taiwan will eventually move towards the concentration of travel agencies like Japan and South Korea.
More likely, the existing pattern will continue, with each ecosystem gradually accumulating business energy and blossoming in its own way. What is certain is that the customer organization and sales methods of group travel products will inevitably move away from the traditional model dominated by wholesalers and offline distribution of single product chains.
In markets like Japan and South Korea, where concentration has been completed, the digitalization of traditional travel agencies has already started, and there are even innovative means such as live broadcasting for traffic diversion. In Taiwan, where concentration has not yet occurred but has already loosened, if platform-type OTAs can effectively complete supply chain integration and traffic conversion, their role may shift from being a seller of independent travel to becoming a “one-stop travel supplier”
