Jeju Air "Trend of Increasing Solo Travelers"

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] Results show that the number of solo travelers who prefer traveling alone has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Jeju Air on the 13th, an analysis of domestic flight passenger trends from January to August this year revealed that 35% (1.46 million) of the total 4.17 million passengers were solo travelers.

This is a 3.6 percentage point increase compared to the same period last year, when 830,000 solo travelers accounted for 31.4% of the 2.65 million domestic flight passengers.

However, this result classifies “solo travelers” as those who booked and issued tickets individually for a flight, so it may include cases where companions traveling together made separate reservations, which could cause some discrepancy with the actual number of “solo travelers.”

The same trend appears in the “2020 National Travel Survey” published by the Korea Tourism Organization in June. The survey showed that the proportion of so-called “honhaengjok” (solo travelers) traveling alone on domestic trips in 2020 was 4.8%, while those traveling with companions accounted for 95.2%, still overwhelmingly dominant, but the share of solo travelers has been increasing annually.

Over the recent three years from 2018 to 2020, the proportion of solo travelers was 2.5% in 2018, 4.1% in 2019, and 4.8% in 2020. The average number of companions on tourism trips also gradually decreased from 4.9 in 2018, 4.3 in 2019, to 3.2 in 2020.

Jeju Air explained that the increase in solo passengers is due to the ongoing COVID-19 social distancing guidelines making group travel difficult, and the characteristics of solo travel that allow people to leave without restrictions on time or destination.

A Jeju Air official said, “With single-person households accounting for more than 40% of all households in Korea, the lifestyle of single-person households is expected to bring changes across the economy and culture,” adding, “We will offer various travel pleasures through diverse marketing activities targeting them.”