Yanolja launches NOL Universe after merging OTA platforms

SoftBank-backed Yanolja Co., South Korea’s top travel and accommodation booking platform operator, on Friday introduced a new platform called NOL Universe. Its launch came via a merger of its two online travel agency (OTA) subsidiaries – Yanolja Platform and InterparkTriple Corp.  

The company will foster NOL Universe into a mega OTA platform, through which it will offer its users not only booking services for a wide range of travel products, such as air tickets, accommodation, car rentals and more, but also experiences like dining out, shopping and community activities.

“NOL Universe will set a new path in the travel and recreation market at home and abroad with maximized synergy between the two platforms, distinguished service and outstanding technology,” said Yanolja’s co-founder and Chief Executive Lee Sujin.

NOL Universe will be led by two CEOs, Bae Bochan, president of Yanolja Platform, and Chae Hwiyoung, president of InterparkTriple.

The company said the new platform will actively seek collaboration and healthy competition with major foreign rivals to make a new leap to become a global major OTA.

GREAT SYNERGY

Founded in 2007, Yanolja has built an immense database of local and foreign travel services.

InterparkTriple is an OTA platform created by a marriage of the travel service unit of Korea’s first-generation e-commerce platforms, Interpark Inc., and Triple, a hyper-personalized travel platform.

Yanolja spent about 300 billion won ($202 million) to acquire Interpark and Triple in 2022. Later, it sold Interpark’s shopping and book businesses and launched InterparkTriple after consolidating the remaining travel service with Triple.

The debut of NOL Universe comes after Yanolja in August embarked on a process to streamline and restructure its overall business to shore up its profitability before its delayed initial public offering on the Nasdaq.

Later in the month, the Korean OTA startup announced a plan to merge its platform with InterparkTriple, which got the nod from the shareholders of the two subsidiaries in November.

The merger is expected to integrate overlapping businesses between Yanolja and InterparkTriple to improve business efficiency while allowing them to access each other’s massive data built over decades to create better services powered by artificial intelligence technology, the company said.

RESTRUCTURING TO BOOST PROFITABILITY BEFORE AN IPO

Yanolja, which garnered a $2 billion investment from billionaire SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son-led Vision Fund in 2021, planned to go public on the Nasdaq in 2021 but has postponed the listing.

It re-attempted it earlier this year but put it off again to 2025.

During that time, Yanolja’s profitability has worsened, making it increasingly difficult to achieve its initially targeted enterprise value of 10 trillion won for a Nasdaq IPO, industry officials said.

In 2023, Yanolja reported a mere 1.7 billion won in operating profit on sales of 766.7 billion won.

As part of its restructuring, Yanolja also absorbed and integrated the Daily Hotel app and website into Yanolja. It also let go of other non-core businesses in the food and beverage sector.

Through the ongoing business revamp, Yanolja plans to strengthen its cloud business, one of its future growth drivers.

It currently operates a business-to-business (B2B) cloud service, providing domestic and foreign hotels with reservation and management solutions.

Write to Eun-Yi Ko at koko@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.