Foreigners Ordering Chicken and Beer Delivery Is Bigger Than You'd Think [IT Item of the Day]

[Financial News] As the number of foreign tourists visiting Korea rises rapidly, domestic platform companies are also benefiting from the inbound boom. As tourism has shifted from shopping-focused trips to experience-based spending on reservations, delivery, performances and transportation, platform operators are stepping up services for foreign users and accelerating their push into the market.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) on the 11th, the number of foreign tourists who visited Korea in the first half of this year was provisionally estimated to have exceeded 10 million. Analysts say the country has not only recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but that spending patterns among visitors are also changing from shopping-centered consumption to broader use of everyday and cultural services.
The most notable case is food delivery platforms. According to Woowa Brothers, which operates Baedal Minjok, app orders paid for with overseas-issued credit cards and global simple payment services in the first half of this year jumped 331% from a year earlier, while order value rose 308%.
Baedal Minjok has been steadily upgrading its services to target foreign demand in advance. In February, it became the first domestic delivery platform to introduce multilingual services in English, Chinese and Japanese. It also supports global payment methods such as Google account login, overseas credit cards and Apple Pay. With individual travel becoming more common and interest in K-food growing, the user base has expanded beyond foreign residents in Korea to include tourists as well.
Travel platforms are also responding actively to the expanding inbound market. NOL World, the foreigner-only travel and ticket platform operated by Nol Universe, offers services linked not only to lodging but also to performances, activities and transportation. Its cumulative membership this year has reached 9.43 million. Purchase volume in the first half of this year also rose 45% from the same period last year. On the same day, Nol Universe signed a strategic partnership with Apple World, a Japanese hotel distribution specialist, to supply about 30,000 domestic lodging facilities to Japanese travel agencies and global sales networks. The company aims to attract more visitors to Korea while also expanding overseas sales channels for the domestic lodging industry.
Rising demand for transportation among foreigners is also driving platform growth. K-Ride, the foreigner-only taxi-hailing service operated by Kakao Mobility Corp., saw new sign-ups in the first half of this year rise by about 65% from a year earlier, while taxi-hailing requests increased by about 120%. In particular, during the BTS concert in March, the number of completed taxi rides on K-Ride rose by an average of 34% from the previous week.
Industry watchers say the increase in foreign visitors is becoming a new growth engine for the platform sector, extending beyond simple tourism demand. In a report released the same day, Samjong KPMG said, "Platform companies in areas such as tourism information search, reservations, mobility and delivery are responding to growing demand from foreign independent travelers and establishing themselves as key infrastructure in the K-tourism ecosystem." It added, "The role of digital touchpoints that connect foreign tourists' movement and spending is also expanding, and inbound vertical platforms that effectively link segmented travel purposes and interests are also emerging."
wongood@fnnews.com Joo Won-gyu Reporter