A Tour of the Biggest Travel Agency in Korea - Hana Tour
I recently registered as a participant in a program called 'SNS School' organized by the Embassy of International Students in Korea! The activity will be held for two months, from January until the end of February, and its preliminary schedule includes various initiatives such as a special lecture delivered by the Director of Social Work Center (Former CEO of Share & Care), Mr Hwang Seongjin, who was also one of the main mentors of the Embassy's previous project entitled 'Foreign Students World Reporters', as well as visits to Hana Tour, CJ Group, UNESCO and other big Korean businesses.
On Thursday, 9 January, we had our first appointment with the biggest travel agency in Korea, Hana Tour.
Since the meeting point was set nearby Jonggak Station in Seoul, where the headquarters of the company is located at, our team gathered in front of the Mark Hotel, which as we found out that day, is the first hotel established by the enterprise.
After we met with the representative of Hana Tour we first had lunch at Hana Tour's main cafeteria located at the basement of the hotel.
The food was quite good as you can see, the main dish was Tonkatsu and pasta. We all enjoy it ><
After we finished our lunch we took a tour of the main building which was located across the Mark Hotel.
The first floors of the building are occupied by the SM Duty Free which is the Duty Free mall owned by Hana Tour.
We took a tour of the mall where we could check out the international luxury brands as well as local K-beauty brands!
They also have a space inside the mall for video and photo shootings as you can see below.
After we moved around the mall we took the elevator to go to our lecture room but before we could attend the lecture we stopped by the History Room of Hana Tour where we could find out more about the story of the company from its establishment till present.
Hana Tour was established as a travel agency between 1993~1996 and along its activity years also established as I mentioned, the duty free retail business, hotel business, production∙distribution of cultural products, internet business.
We traveled together back to its early years~
till back to the present.
After we made the tour of the History Room we moved to the conference room where we received a special lecture about Hana Tour's CSR programs. The lecture was held by the main director coordinator of Hana Foundation's program.
Through the lecture she introduced us one of the main program made by Hana Tour Foundation called "희망여행" in English "Hope Travel". This program is aiming to help different disadvantaged group of people through travel such a kids from poor countries, people with disabilities as well as social programs for families.
One of the examples was the " Disabled Orchestra" through which Hana Tour Foundation organized a trip to Taiwan for those disabled talented young people and their parents where they held a concert and also traveled. That was their very first trip outside the country. As we had the chance to watch the video of the trip, I could understand better their struggles and how important is to try developing your talent no matter where are coming from and who you are.
At the end of the lecture we also had Q&A and also received a paper where we should write what is in our opinion the "Power of Travel" in one sentence.
At the end of the tour we took a photo downstairs in front of the Running Man statue and after we took a small tour of the Running Man Thematic Experience Center!
Also received some really cute goods. Thank you Hana Tour and Hana Tour Foundation and especially to our mentors for this unique chance.
Overall it was a really nice experience and I am looking forward for the next company visit.