SeeU vs Traditional Tours: Why Personalized Travel Experiences Matter More Than Ever

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(The CEN News / Reporter Jeong Seonghun) “I don’t want Korea to be just another tourist stop — I want it to be a place people remember for its people and the moments they shared. With SeeU, we’re moving past showing culture to creating unforgettable experiences.”

A single moment while studying abroad sparked the idea that became a people-centered travel platform. Eun-sol Ko believed a great experience can change perceptions, and she set out to make Korea less of a checklist and more of a lasting memory. That belief led her to found SeeU and the content startup New Dots.

The spark came during years she spent studying in China. She first went to Beijing to visit her older sister and found the reality there far from what she’d expected.

“Contrary to vague stereotypes, the place was amazing — like discovering a whole new world,” she says. “That feeling made me want to stay and study longer.”

What started as language study at 18 grew into a life lived abroad. She completed high school and university in China and, from early on, gravitated toward sharing Korean culture with others.

While still a student, Ko worked with a Chinese NGO teaching hangul and showing locals how to make gimbap. Those everyday cultural exchanges shaped her future direction.

After graduating, she worked at the Korean Cultural Center under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, producing events such as taekwondo performances and concerts where Chinese singers performed Korean songs.

Through that work she felt a big disconnect between online chatter and real interactions. Social media amplified Korea-China tensions and hateful comments, but the people she met in person often felt the opposite — many were genuinely curious about and fond of Korean culture.

“When an issue flared up, some people criticized Korea while others defended it — but they were all Chinese,” she explains. “Meeting people face to face showed me how much direct experience can shift opinions.”

She came to believe that positive experiences change minds — and that travel is the best way to create those experiences.

Ko also saw the market shifting. Travelers increasingly wanted authentic cultural moments over formulaic tours, a trend that accelerated after COVID-19.

After the pandemic, group tours gave way to independent travel, and the number of small-group and solo foreign visitors to Korea rose quickly.

“Chinese travel parties averaged about 2.1 people, and independent travelers made up more than 80%,” Ko notes. “On Jeju, most visitors came solo.”

But these travelers weren’t just hunting for facts and maps. Solo visitors wanted to connect with locals and experience real Korean life, not just tick off landmarks.

Ko realized the heart of a memorable trip isn’t a place — it’s the people you share it with.

“Places matter, but who you travel with matters more,” she says. “If your travel companion isn’t great, the destination won’t leave a good impression. Shared moments shape how you remember a country.”

That insight became SeeU: a platform that links foreign travelers with local hosts so visitors can move beyond sightseeing and actually travel together, discovering culture through real encounters.

SeeU isn’t just another travel app that dumps information on users. It’s built to connect people and experiences. From profile-based matching and in-app chat to split payments and itinerary management, users can handle the whole trip inside the platform.

The road to SeeU wasn’t smooth. Ko left a stable public-sector job and faced doubts from people around her. With no prior platform experience, building the service was a steep learning curve. She repeatedly tested features and refined the product so real users would find it easy and natural.

“At first I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to build,” she recalls. “Turning that idea into functioning features took far more steps and effort than I imagined.”

One reason she persevered through setbacks was her team.

“I couldn’t have come this far alone,” Ko says. “Every time we ran into unexpected problems, the team helped steady the ship and stayed with me, which kept us moving forward.”

Thanks to that persistence, New Dots is gaining recognition for its growth potential. In 2025 it was selected as a pre-startup/early-stage company by the Gyeongnam Creative Economy Innovation Center and secured pre-seed funding from Enpifteen Partners. It also joined the ‘Scale-Deep’ investment linkage program for innovative small businesses.

This year New Dots was chosen for the 16th Youth Startup Academy run by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, accelerating the company’s expansion. The program supports promising early-stage startups with funding, education, investment connections, and mentoring.

Ko plans to use the program to sharpen SeeU’s features and expand its content. Her goal is to evolve the platform into a place where foreigners and locals connect naturally and visitors can dive deep into Korean culture.

At the same time, New Dots is expanding beyond China, pitching the service to other countries so even more travelers can experience Korea. The long-term aim is to grow from a travel app into a global lifestyle platform that ties together lodging, transport, beauty, and local experiences — in short, connecting every part of a trip. Their vision: Korea with SeeU has no limits.

Experience is the core value for Ko. The company name, New Dots, draws inspiration from Steve Jobs’ famous “Connecting the Dots” speech.

Being selected as a scholarship student in college also helped shape her outlook. The scholarship foundation’s chair, who had been helped during their own studies abroad, founded the organization to give back and open doors for many students.

Ko says that experience taught her the importance of paying it forward. “I met so many good people through unexpected hardships,” she says. “I want to be someone who leaves a positive mark on others and returns the help I received.”

She sums up her philosophy simply: “It’s not the connection itself but which points you choose to link. People who’ve had great experiences can pass those on to others.”

(The CEN News) Reporter Jeong Seonghun until03@naver.com