Ticket Monster has happy holiday

Ticket Monster, the local commerce Web site in Korea, said yesterday, sales of travel products shot up 450 percent during the Chuseok holidays this year from a year earlier, while its entire sales soared 140 percent.

As the Chuseok holiday was unusually long from five days to nine days, sales of flight tickets to Jeju Island and vouchers for domestic hotels and resorts increased significantly.

Between Aug. 26 and Sept. 11, Ticket Monster sold 8,000 one-way tickets for domestic low-cost carrier T’way Airlines, 1,266 vouchers for Haeundae Grand Hotel in Busan, 1,101 vouchers for STX Resort and 6,098 vouchers for Aqua Planet Jeju.

Although the number of international travelers also increased, those people who planned on taking vacations in Korea through social commerce to have time for both homecoming and traveling by staying at hotels in the city or going to Jeju Island increased as well.

In particular, travel products related to Jeju Island and hotel vouchers in Seoul and Busan, which could be used immediately after the purchase, sold like hotcakes as those people who could not make reservations in advance flocked to the social commerce Web site right before the Chuseok holiday.

Meanwhile, sales of shipped items, which account for the largest share of total sales for Chuseok, also increased 20 percent between Aug. 26 and Sept. 11, compared to the same period last year.

BY KIM JUNG-YOON [kjy@joongang.co.kr]