Yanolja to expand overseas business with global partner

South Korea's tourism platform Yanolja is expanding its overseas air and travel operations.

Yanolja Cloud, an artificial intelligence-based software as a service company, on Monday announced its signing of a letter of intent on business cooperation with Amadeus, the Spain-based global air travel and tourism IT giant, to jointly develop international tourism and leisure businesses.

Attending the signing ceremony were Yanolja Cloud CEO Kim Jong-yoon, Executive Vice President David Peller and Frederic Barou, Amadeus senior vice president for online travel and market strategy in the Asia-Pacific, and Joe Choi, Amadeus director for online travel in North Asia.

Based in Madrid, Spain, Amadeus has provided travel IT technology and solutions like those of travel, aviation, airports, hotels and search engines to more than 190 countries. It was listed on the Spanish stock exchange in 2010.

Through their agreement, Yanolja Cloud and Amadeus will jointly work toward digitalization of the global leisure industry and form a cooperative system to revive the sluggish tourism market. Their initial approach is to use solution technology and know-how and continuous personnel exchange to promote a digital environment for the sector. 

Both sides will upgrade services by linking Yanolja Cloud's lodging infrastructure with Amadeus' tourism and airline search and automation technologies. They will also share information on inventory in accommodations, performing arts, leisure and airlines and big data-based technology for recommending customer-tailored content.

Their objective is to create an environment where global customers can use the platforms of both companies for more convenient and diverse content on travel and leisure. Synergy is also expected through on- and offline payment links between platforms, sharing strategies for marketing to customers and conducting joint projects including personnel exchange.

Vice President Barou said the two sides will make an innovative future for the tourism and leisure industry based on their data and networks.

Write to Jun-sik Bang at silv0000@hankyung.com