Recently, cases have surged where consumers booked flights and accommodations through online travel agencies (OTAs) but faced disruptions during their trips and were unable to receive compensation.
On the 17th, according to the National Policy Committee member Lee Yang-soo's office, which received submissions from the Korea Consumer Agency regarding the status of consumer damage remedy applications for OTAs over the past five years, the number of applications received last year was 1,422, an increase of about six times compared to 241 in 2021, marking the largest increase in three years. By the end of last month this year, 1,350 applications had been received, nearing last year's level within just seven months.
This data aggregates reports regarding seven travel platforms, including Booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com, Airbnb, Expedia, Trip.com, and Ctrip. The increase in consumer damage reports is attributed to the explosive surge in travel demand following COVID-19 and the normalization of online shopping for easy flight and accommodation bookings and cancellations.
Looking at the types of damage reports, during the travel restrictions of 2021 to 2022 due to COVID-19, the primary demand was for refunds of cancellation fees. Recently, however, there have been many claims related to inaccurate information provision, cancellation fees shortly after payment or on the day of service, and failure to fulfill the lowest price guarantee. Above all, there has been growing consumer dissatisfaction as OTAs, which act as intermediaries between airlines and accommodation providers and customers, have been sluggish in addressing cancellations and refunds while promoting their lowest price guarantee.
Over the past four years and seven months, among the damage remedy applications by OTA, Agoda had the highest number with 2,190 cases, followed by Trip.com (1,266 cases), Airbnb (332 cases), Booking.com (258 cases), and Hotels.com (154 cases). Expedia had 93 cases and Ctrip had 26 cases.
As a result of the Korea Consumer Agency receiving damage remedy applications and mediating, out of 4,319 cases, refunds were issued for 2,326 cases (53.8%) related to accommodation payments and 255 cases (5.9%) received compensation.
During the same period, the number of damage remedy applications filed against domestic airlines (the combined total of the top five companies by applications) increased tenfold from 82 cases in 2021 to 825 cases in 2024. Last year, the number of applications was 825, which is an increase of about 60% compared to 516 in 2023, and it is expected to continue rising, with 502 cases already reported as of July this year.
For overseas airlines, the number of applications received last year was 319, which is 1.5 times the 125 cases reported in 2021.