Eastar Jet Co. said on the 11th that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Fliggy, the travel platform of China's Alibaba Group, to expand sales of China-to-Korea airline tickets.
On the 10th, at Fliggy's headquarters in Hangzhou, China, Eastar Jet Co. Chief Executive Cho Jung-seok, Commercial Division Head Lee Kyung-min, Fliggy Chief Executive Li Chen, and others attended a signing ceremony for an agreement to attract Chinese visitors to Korea and conduct joint marketing.
The two companies will cooperate on joint promotions to expand sales of China-to-Korea airline tickets and meet regional tourism demand, as well as on promoting Eastar Jet Co. and Korea travel content.
Eastar Jet Co. plans to supply Fliggy with airline tickets connecting China with major regions in Korea, including Incheon, Jeju, Busan, Cheongju, and Daegu. Fliggy will promote Eastar Jet Co. and tourism content by region in Korea to about 500 million members using live commerce and influencer marketing.
Fliggy is Alibaba Group's online travel platform that sells about 1.5 million hotels worldwide, 25,000 air routes, and 8,000 attraction tickets. It has more than 500 million members, and about 60 million membership subscribers.
As Eastar Jet Co. expands routes to China, it is also stepping up efforts to attract visitors from China to Korea. In April, it signed a memorandum of understanding for "attracting visitors from the Chinese-speaking world to Korea and revitalizing regional tourism" with the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) and is expanding sales and marketing channels in China.
From January to August this year, foreign passengers on Eastar Jet Co.'s routes to the Chinese-speaking world rose 204% from a year earlier. Foreigners accounted for 70.1% of all passengers. On the Jeju–Shanghai route, the share of foreign passengers averaged 98%.
An Eastar Jet Co. official said, "We expect to broaden our touchpoints with local customers in China through cooperation with Fliggy, the country's largest travel platform," adding, "We will continue to expand cooperation with local partners in China to steadily generate demand for travel to Korea among Chinese visitors and contribute to Korea-China tourism exchanges and the revitalization of regional tourism."