The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) said on the 11th that they selected 30 corporations to take part in the "2026 Tourism Global Challenge" program.
The Global Challenge is a program that helps promising tourism corporations expand overseas. ▲ Fastlane, operator of the beauty medical platform Goddess Ticket ▲ The Rest, a K-wellness hotel development and marketing automation-linked solution ▲ Modehouse, an entertainment platform ▲ Pepper & Salt, which analyzes K-IP value with AI and plans content merchandise ▲ EMCITY, a mobile facility control service ▲ Parastar Entertainment, which develops Korea-bound K-pop products using the IP of Big Ocean, the world's first deaf idol, were among those selected.
The selected corporations will work with overseas-specialized accelerators through the end of this year to explore entries into markets such as Japan, the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia. The organization will provide up to 200 million won in commercialization funds per corporation on a sliding scale and offer capacity-building programs including global business diagnostics, IR consulting and market-specific strategy development. It will also provide opportunities to take part in business networking events such as domestic and overseas startup fairs and demo days.
Since introducing the Global Challenge program in 2020, the tourism organization has supported the global expansion of a total of 147 corporations. The Service Platform, which participated last year, attracted a 1 billion won investment from AirTrip, Japan's largest online travel agency. Haenyeo's Kitchen established a local corporation in Singapore to begin full-scale expansion into Southeast Asia.
Moon So-yeon, head of the Tourism Corporation Nurturing Team at the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), said, "With comprehensive support, we will help the selected corporations build their overseas business capabilities," and added, "We will do our best so that the next K-tourism unicorn corporations can emerge."