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<strong>SEGYE</strong> <strong>TOUR</strong><br />
3 FL., MIES Bldg., 21‐1 Seosomun‐Dong, Jung‐Gu, Seoul, Korea<br />
Phone: (822)6900‐9170<br />
Fax:(822)6900‐9096<br />
Homepage: www.segyetour.com<br />
Type of Business:<br />
Retail<br />
Number of Employees: 130<br />
Number Outbound travelers handled in 2008: 70,000<br />
Number of Outbound travelers to America in 2008: 450<br />
(Canada/USA/Central & Latin America)<br />
Receptive tour operator for <strong>California</strong> Tour package:<br />
Current <strong>California</strong> Inclusive Package:<br />
Samho Tour, JJ Tour<br />
General Package ‐ 7‐day US West Package<br />
Asiana Airlines Consortium 7‐day pack<br />
Interest:<br />
Golf, Sports<br />
Other:<br />
Renamed from Hodo Tour, Segye Tour is well known for its golf and incentive tour<br />
tours. It has sponsored many golf tournaments such as the LPGA Hana Bank and Kolon<br />
Championship to work as official travel agent. It also expanded its business to on‐line<br />
and off‐line market. Segye also handled national games and conferences such as 2002<br />
14th Asian Games, 2002 World Cup and 2005 APEC Accommodation Support Team.<br />
* Please attach the business card(s) of the person(s) who you have a meeting with:<br />
* Note:
Research on the Korean Receptive Operators in <strong>California</strong><br />
1. Backgrounder: Why the roles of Korean receptive operators are important?<br />
• Most of Korean travelers who visit <strong>California</strong> go through a travel agent in Korea to<br />
purchase either airline tickets or air-tel, or even multi-day group tour packages. And<br />
those travelers, whether traveling as a group or independently, depend on receptive<br />
operators to guide them during their stay. Receptive operators play especially an<br />
important role when it comes to what tours customers decide to purchase once they arrive<br />
in <strong>California</strong>. (Yosemite vs. Grand Canyon; Universal vs. Disneyland; Palm Spring vs.<br />
Las Vegas).<br />
• Korean receptive operators, including those based in LA/SF, currently sell not only<br />
<strong>California</strong>-exclusive tours but also a variety of tours including non-<strong>California</strong> regions in<br />
the USA. So, it is important for CTTC HQ to network with them and to help them<br />
increase destination knowledge of <strong>California</strong>, and also encourage them to develop<br />
<strong>California</strong>-only tour programs to help them push selling <strong>California</strong> products more<br />
aggressively.<br />
2. Profiles for the Receptive Tour Operators<br />
(1) Samho Tour Inc:<br />
• Address: 3030 W. Olympic Blvd. Suite 104 Los Angeles, CA 90006<br />
• Tel: 213-427-5500<br />
• Website: www. Samhotour.com<br />
• Contacts: Steve Shin (President) ; Kevin Limb (Operation Director);<br />
Bruce Ha (Executive Director) ohmyguide2000@yahoo.co.kr;<br />
John Choi (Marketing Management) samhochoi@hotmail.com ;<br />
Kevin Choi (Team leader) kevin07014@gmail.com<br />
Samho Tour is the largest receptive operator in terms of volume for handling Western<br />
America tour program, handling over 100,000 Korean tourists a year. Samho’s main<br />
customers (70%) are those who purchase tours once they have arrived in the USA.<br />
These customers are usually VFR market or business travelers who may not have prepurchased<br />
a leisure tour package through a travel agent in Korea. The rest (30%) of the<br />
customers are those who have come to USA through purchasing multiple day tour<br />
packages in Korea. These customers often times will extend their stay in the USA after<br />
the tour. In other words, most of their customers are already in <strong>California</strong> and look for<br />
local tour packages after completing their main purpose of their visit, whether it’s<br />
business or VFR. Samho also sells a variety of other tours, including winery tours to<br />
Napa and Sonoma, Yosemite, and tours that involve neighboring regions such as the<br />
Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. With the implementation of the VWP, the agent is<br />
planning to sell its tour products directly to Korean travelers in Korea in the future.<br />
(2) JN Tour:<br />
• Address: 3680 Wilshire Blvd., #105, L.A., CA 90010
etail package tour travel agencies, MK Tour focus on small and medium sized agencies<br />
and those agencies specialize in incentive group tours. Since MK doesn’t have their<br />
Seoul branch office, they work “Tour Mart” a ground agent based in Seoul who handles<br />
Korean Air’s USA consortium tour packages.<br />
(6) Metro<br />
• Tel: 323-931-0104<br />
• Contact: Sang-Chul KIM (President) metrotrou@hanmail.net<br />
Metro is a tour operator, with similar business practice to that of MK Tour. With a<br />
handful of employees, they emphasize on working with small sized group tours rather<br />
than working with package tour agencies.<br />
(7) O Tour<br />
• Tel: 82 2 30 8030<br />
• Contact: Hye-Kyung OH (President) otours@empal.com<br />
With limited capacity to handle coach tours, O Tour specializes in handling small sized<br />
conference/incentive groups.<br />
(8) Ace Tour<br />
• Tel: 213-388-7166<br />
• Address: 3921 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 333 Los Angeles, CA 90010<br />
• Contact: Un Cho (President)<br />
Ace Tour focuses on handling small-size conference groups. Although based in LA,<br />
Ace Tour has good networks with supplies in Las Vegas, and aggressively sells Las<br />
Vegas to their customers.<br />
(9) JJ USA (Based in San Francisco)<br />
• Tel: 213-200-5140<br />
• Address: 325 Coronado Ave. #310 Daly City, CA<br />
• Contact: Justin Choi jjtours.choi@gmail.com<br />
JJ is one of the few Korean receptive operators based in San Francisco. Since most of<br />
major receptive operators are based in Los Angeles, if there are any groups visiting San<br />
Francisco, Korean operators either send their tour guide to San Francisco or use their<br />
partners. JJ has a partnership with Samho so it handles a part of Samho’s volume. With<br />
its good network in San Francisco, JJ is strong with small to medium sized incentive<br />
groups.<br />
(10) Sanfo Tours (Based in San Francisco)<br />
• Tel: 408-348-7570<br />
• Contact: Sunkyung Barch info@sanfotours.com<br />
• Website: www.triptosf.com
• Tel: 213 382 3333<br />
• Website: www.jountour.com<br />
• Contacts: Seung-Jin Um (President) jounsamum@hotmail.com ;<br />
Jerome Yang (Planning Director) yawoo68@gmail.com;<br />
Kevin Park (Tour Manager) park6680@naver.com<br />
Formerly known as “Joun Tour,” JN Tour is another major receptive operator based in<br />
LA. JN Tour has recently signed a contract directly with major wholesalers in Korea<br />
such as Lotte Tour and Jau Tour, without going through a ground agent in Korea. This<br />
is to minimize the cost that comes from working with middlemen. JN Tour continues to<br />
develop creative packages including different regions of <strong>California</strong>, and promotes them<br />
on their website. In addition, JN Tour has created a winery package that is currently<br />
sold by Lotte Tour. Unlike other tour operators based in Los Angeles, they only handle<br />
customers that booked tour packages through their contracted travel agents in Korea.<br />
(3) Aju Tour<br />
• Address:3053 W. Olymic Bl., #1001 L.A., CA 90006<br />
• Tel: 213 725 3693<br />
• Website: www.eajutour.com<br />
• Contacts: Pyoung Sik Bahk (Chairman) psbahk007@hotmail.com;<br />
Peter Bahk (Vice President) peterbahk@hotmail.com;<br />
Aju Tour has the longest history as a receptive operator based in L.A. With the VWP in<br />
place, Aju will expand their market from Seoul, reaching out to travel agencies based in<br />
other major cities. This is to target the residents of other cities, who can now travel to<br />
the USA without going through person-to-person interview in Seoul to obtain a visa. Aju<br />
Tour will target small to medium sized travel agents in Korea.<br />
(4) Hana Tour<br />
• Tel: 213-736-1212<br />
• Address: 626 S. Kingsley Dr. #A Los Angeles, CA 90005<br />
• Website: www.usahanatour.com<br />
• Contacts: Young-Moon Lee (Managing Director) ymlee@hanatour.com;<br />
Yun-Soo Chang (Manager); Sang W Hasangwoo@hanatour.com<br />
Hana Tour Korea is the largest Korean wholesale travel agent, single-handedly<br />
controlling 25% of the Korea outbound travel agents’ volume. With the anticipation of<br />
increased visitors to USA, Hana Tour opened its branch office, Hana Tour USA, in Los<br />
Angeles in June 2006. As Hana Tour’s brand awareness is not as high as Samho or Aju,<br />
Hana is striving to promote its brand in the USA not to lose opportunities for the<br />
customers who look for tours after they arrive in the USA. Hana Tour continues to<br />
work on establishing its brand and networks with other tourism suppliers.<br />
(5) MK Tour:<br />
• Tel: 213-604-1007<br />
• Address: 444 S Westmorelnad Ave., #103 Los Angeles, CA 90020<br />
• Contacts: Yoon-Ki Sohn (President) clubmktour@hotmail.com<br />
Unlike the other 4 tour operators mentioned above who focus on major wholesale and
Sanfo Tours is an exclusive Korean contractor of a major <strong>California</strong> tour company,<br />
“Tower Tours,” who have variety of day tour programs in English. Sanfo Tours<br />
provides booking arrangements for those customers who prefer to join a local tour that<br />
provides English tour guide. Currently, most of tours are handled by a Korean guide<br />
with a van or coach but there is a niche market whose customers like to experience local<br />
tours with other travelers from all around the world.<br />
Another business line of Sanfo Tours is winery or VIP tours. The owner of Sanfo Tour,<br />
Ms. Barch, had worked at Samsung Corporation in San Francisco, where she was<br />
responsible for arranging VIP winery tours for Samsung’s executives. With her<br />
experience in handling VIP market and her diverse network with suppliers, she focuses<br />
on small-size VIP tours.<br />
3. The feasible ideas to work with RTOs are as follows:<br />
• Co-ops: When a key receptive operator conducts a large scale consumer campaign or<br />
advertisement for the <strong>California</strong> tour products, CTTC HQ can consider supporting<br />
them.<br />
• Quarterly Information Sharing Meeting: CTTC HQ can hold a quarterly (semiannually)<br />
meeting by inviting key receptive operators to update them with the market<br />
trend and share ideas to promote tourism of <strong>California</strong> as well as to update them on<br />
CTTC Korea initiatives.<br />
• Receptive Tour Operator FAM Tour/Site Inspection: When new hotels or new<br />
attractions open in the State, CTTC HQ can look into arranging FAM tour or site<br />
inspections with the key receptive tour operators to provide the most up to date<br />
information as well as to establish stronger relationship with the key agents.<br />
• Tour Guide Training Program: As the number of Korean travelers to <strong>California</strong><br />
increases, it is very important that the tour guides are kept up to date with the various<br />
tourism resources available. If there is a curriculum that tour guides can take, CTTC<br />
can consider providing a ‘certificate’ to those tour guides who have successfully<br />
completed the programs, which can help motivate the tour guides to continue<br />
providing high quality service to the customers. Extra benefits can be offered to<br />
motivate the tour guides.<br />
• Marketing Collaterals/Publications: Distribute marketing collaterals such as maps or<br />
guidebooks, travel planner to the key receptive operators.<br />
• Itinerary development: CTTC HQ can work with the key receptive operators in<br />
helping them develop and launch new itineraries hat suit the Korean market.<br />
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