It has been more than five years since the second article below was published.
In that time, COVID-19 swept the globe and dealt the travel industry a blow few had ever seen.
Winwin Travel was not immune.
Cancellations tied to the pandemic topped 10 billion KRW, yet we refunded every booking in full—and fast, with no excuses.
Many agencies and airlines dragged their feet on refunds; our response could not have been more different.
With almost no new bookings, most of our team went on leave or had to move on, and we could barely keep the lights on—growth was out of the question.
Those two-plus years were among the hardest we've ever faced.
Winwin Travel posted a net loss in the billions of KRW during COVID-19.
Even so, we never emptied the company's bank accounts.
We had avoided splashing cash on marketing, kept overhead tight, and held enough cash to cover every customer prepayment plus a working-capital cushion.
Keeping everything in cash—and steering clear of stocks, bonds, crypto, and property—may have looked old-fashioned in the boom years.
That discipline mattered even more once the pandemic hit.
When the Korean government rolled out subsidized and even interest-free loans for travel agencies, we turned them all down.
Our zero-debt rule stayed non-negotiable.
In hindsight, COVID-19 was the ultimate stress test—and it showed how conservative, and how safe, Winwin Travel's finances really are.
