South Korea × Benelux: "The Masked Traveler" trade programme

2024 marked 60 years of diplomatic relations between South Korea and the Netherlands, giving the Korea Tourism Organization a natural moment to deepen trade engagement across the Benelux, a region where South Korea's tourism potential was growing fast, fuelled by the popularity of K-culture, but where travel advisors often lacked the destination and product knowledge needed to sell complex, multi-stop itineraries with confidence.

Our agency designed and ran "The Masked Traveler", a gamified trade training programme built around an e-learning format: travel advisors progressed through modules covering South Korea's regions, culture, cuisine and travel practicalities, framed as an investigative game rather than a standard training deck, specifically to keep completion rates high across a busy, distraction-prone trade audience with limited time for generic destination briefings.

The programme was distributed to travel professionals across the Benelux through trade partners and direct outreach, with completion and engagement tracked centrally so the Korea Tourism Organization could measure genuine advisor engagement rather than relying on sign-up numbers alone as a proxy for impact.

The 2024 edition registered 255 travel professionals for the trade programme, with 194 completing the full e-learning training, a strong completion rate for a voluntary trade module, and one that reflects a format built specifically to hold advisors' attention rather than a generic, easily-abandoned destination briefing sent by email.

By anchoring the programme in the 60-year Korea–Netherlands diplomatic relationship, the campaign also gave trade partners and media a clear, ready-made editorial hook, reinforcing product training with a narrative that regional press and B2B partners could pick up and relay in their own communications, extending the programme's reach well beyond the travel professionals directly enrolled in the training.