SM Entertainment Ventures into Tourism Industry

SM Entertainment has acquired “Happy Hawaii,” a Hawaii-focused travel agency, and launched “SM Town Travel” to expand its business to the tourism industry. “Happy Hawaii” is an agency that used to be run by actor Jung Joon Ho.

With the acquisition of “Happy Hawaii,” “SM Town Travel” aims to expand its portfolio to study abroad programs, souvenir items, hotel and tourism, local transportation, real estate, and even the resort business as well. Some view this move as SM Entertainment’s first step towards running more hotel and resort business. It’s also viewed as a move to expand on its K-Pop star training facility being built in Kyunggi Do currently.

“We’re first planning to develop more concert-related tourism packages. But we don’t have plans to acquire another hotel or resort type of business right now,” SM Entertainment said.

“We’re going to combine entertainment, travel, and tourism to build a new type of travel service model. With SM’s global entertainment business, there are plenty of synergy opportunities here,” SM Entertainment added.