Hana Tour, a leading travel company in South Korea, is undertaking a significant management overhaul and digital transformation to proactively respond to the rapidly changing travel industry and secure future growth drivers.
On July 7, Hana Tour announced the appointment of Jo Jwa-jin, former CEO of Lotte Card, as its new chief executive officer (CEO). Jo is set to be officially appointed following an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on August 18.
Jo, who graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in economics, has approximately 35 years of extensive experience in strategy, marketing, and management. He has held various positions, including the first representative of Oliver Wyman's Seoul office, and has served as head of strategy and marketing at Hyundai Card, Hyundai Capital, and Hyundai Commercial. He also led Hyundai Capital America and Lotte Card.
During his tenure at Hyundai Card, Jo demonstrated his ability to build premium brands by spearheading the launch of the Alphabet marketing and Hyundai Card Black. As CEO of Lotte Card, he enhanced profitability through asset portfolio restructuring and cost structure innovation, while promoting the data-driven digital strategy Digi-LOCA to boost digital competitiveness. His global business experience includes leading operations in the U.S. and spearheading expansions into Canada and Brazil.
A Hana Tour representative stated, "Jo is a professional manager who has driven innovation and growth across various industries based on strategic thinking and strong execution. We believe he is the right person to establish a new growth foundation for Hana Tour amid the rapid restructuring of the travel industry."
The representative added, "'Hana Tour Chapter 2' is not a change that negates existing businesses, but rather a growth project aimed at reconnecting and developing the competitive strengths accumulated over 30 years in a customer-centric manner to enhance future competitiveness."
In conjunction with this appointment, Hana Tour has decided to implement an executive officer system. This move aims to strengthen the board's strategic decision-making and oversight functions while clarifying the responsibilities and authorities of the management team to establish a more efficient management structure.
Looking ahead, Hana Tour plans to focus on three main growth pillars: expanding the premium travel market, nurturing inbound business, and driving AI-based digital innovation.
In the premium travel market, the company aims to enhance differentiated experiences tailored to customer preferences and travel purposes, moving away from price competition. For inbound business, Hana Tour plans to leverage the spread of K-culture as a new opportunity, expanding differentiated travel services centered on Japan and Southeast Asia to establish itself as a leading platform for inbound tourism to Korea.
Hana Tour's digital innovation efforts are also becoming more concrete. The company recently upgraded its multi-AI agent 'H-AI' to an A2A (Agent-to-Agent) system that allows collaboration among specialized AI agents, and it has completely revamped the user experience (UX/UI).
The A2A system enables a governance agent to understand user intent and designate optimal solutions, while specialized agents handle tasks such as product recommendations, itinerary creation, and reservation inquiries collaboratively.
In terms of UX/UI, the service now offers recommended questions and guidance upon entry to enhance accessibility. For personalized recommendations, it provides supporting evidence to assist in rational decision-making and includes features for automatically saving conversation history and recommended products to ensure continuity in travel planning.
A Hana Tour representative stated, "We plan to implement a seamless one-stop travel commerce environment that connects the entire process from product recommendations to booking conversions, enabling AI to autonomously create customized travel experiences for customers."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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