[Dongguk University Campus Town X IT Donga] Dongguk University has participated in the Seoul Campus Town project since 2022, creating a startup ecosystem in the northwestern urban area. By supporting deep tech and cultural content startups, it was selected as an excellent case of startup nurturing for two consecutive years and received an A+ grade in the 2024 Seoul Campus Town performance evaluation. IT Donga introduces promising startups developing with Dongguk University Campus Town.

“We will create a sustainable leisure and tourism ecosystem.”

As the domestic camping market, which rapidly grew after COVID-19, enters maturity, it is seeking new growth drivers. While enhancing services for existing campers is important, attracting potential customers who have not started camping due to high entry barriers has emerged as a key task for market expansion.


In this context, the camping-specialized startup Camter Co., Ltd. has expanded its business scope by introducing experiential tourism products and expanding partnerships, creating a new breakthrough. After introducing a new business model combining travel, community, and festivals beyond simple rental services, it achieved a performance of increasing the conversion rate (CVR) by about seven times. The conversion rate is one of the key performance indicators of startups, indicating the ratio of customers who actually make a purchase (transaction). CEO Jeong Seong-sik discussed Camter's competitiveness and vision.

Step-by-step growth from a simple rental platform to experiential tourism

Established in 2023, Camter has continued to grow step-by-step in the camping market. Initially starting as a camping equipment rental platform, it transitioned to a profitable storage service model capable of storing and cleaning camping equipment from 2024. Through this, it not only secured camping equipment but also enhanced the transaction environment, operation, and management through the platform. It has been evaluated as lowering the entry barriers to the camping market.

However, CEO Jeong Seong-sik sought a new breakthrough when the conversion rate did not meet expectations. This year, he introduced an experiential product combining camping and regional tourism for the first time. CEO Jeong stated, “We focused on the close connection between camping and regional tourism,” and added, “We judged that combining experience with travel or tourism would be effective, so we planned experiential tourism products.”


Camter's experiential tourism products are divided into three categories: ▲Camter Expedition ▲Camter Mate ▲Camter Camp. Camter Expedition is a travel-type product planned and operated directly by Camter, linking restaurants, tourist attractions, and campsites in specific regions into small to medium-sized experiential programs. It received a positive response when conducted twice in August and September at KT&G Sangsangmadang Nonsan Art Camping Village in Nonsan, Chungnam, as part of KT&G's accelerating program ‘KT&G Sangsang Startup Camp’. Through a business partnership with GS E&C's Ellysian Gangchon in Chuncheon, Gangwon, the pet camping event ‘Dang's Camp’ was successfully held, and it also participated as an official sponsor of the regional festival ‘Forest Bread Market’. Camter Mate is a community-type matching service that creates a companion group for applicants wishing to camp, first conducted in October at the ‘2025 Jeonnam Camping Tourism Expo’ in Haenam, Jeonnam. Lastly, Camter Camp is a festival-specific large-scale program that will be concretized and operated in the future.

Notably, after the launch of experiential tourism products, Camter's conversion rate increased by about seven times. The average customer unit price rose by about 40%, and the revisit rate increased by about 70%. CEO Jeong stated, “We are not only securing customers much more effectively than before but also getting closer to achieving PMF (Product-Market Fit),” and added, “Since each experiential tourism product has different characteristics—travel-type for Camter Expedition, community-type for Camter Mate, and festival-type for Camter Camp—we can broaden the scope of customer inflow.”

Resolving structural disconnection in the camping market... Expanding to overall leisure activities

While operating Camter for over two years, CEO Jeong identified the biggest problem in the domestic camping market as ‘structural disconnection’. Despite many stakeholders related to camping, such as manufacturers, large corporations, and local governments, there is a lack of solutions that comprehensively encompass them. Camter analyzes that the growth of the camping market has been slow, and the potential customers are more than expected.


CEO Jeong confidently stated, “Camter is the appropriate solution that can solve the camping market's problems.” This year, Camter transformed into an on-demand based modular lifestyle integrated platform encompassing all services needed for camping, including rental, cleaning, storage, transportation, and linkage with campsites and content. It covers everything from real-time reservation of camping equipment to experiential tourism products linked to accommodation or tourism, creating a structure easily accessible even for camping novices.

Camter plans to advance to the next stage with an integrated all-in-one lifecycle model. Through this, it aims to organically connect rental, management, and experiences. Strengthening synergies between services and expanding B2B and B2G partnerships and channels domestically and internationally are also possible.

CEO Jeong added, “There are voices of doubt about whether the domestic camping market will grow as overseas travel increases after COVID-19. To take another leap forward in the mature camping market, it is important to further lower entry barriers and expand the market size,” and stated, “Therefore, Camter's target customers are not existing campers but those who want to camp but have not entered the market.”


Moreover, as customer needs for new experiences grow, various experiential programs in beauty, entertainment, etc., are pouring in. Nevertheless, the leisure activity or outdoor market beyond camping has high entry barriers due to information constraints or equipment burdens. Therefore, Camter plans to expand into various leisure activity fields such as surfing, fishing, and skiing beyond camping.

CEO Jeong stated, “We are promoting ways to develop camping not only by linking it with travel or tourism but also by connecting it with sports or various regional festivals, developing them into stay-type tourism products.” He also mentioned, “We are currently planning joint product development with various branches of the Korea Tourism Organization,” and explained, “If Camter had started with experiential tourism products from the beginning, it would not have grown this much. Because we have built solid capabilities for over two years, we were able to expand flexibly without difficulty when launching experiential tourism products.”

Partnerships with various large corporations and public institutions, such as HD Hyundai Oilbank, KT&G, Ellysian, Hi Plaza (LG Electronics Best Shop), Korea Gas Safety Corporation, Asan City, Pohang City, and Gyeongju City, are also Camter's strengths. CEO Jeong stated, “As Camter establishes a unique positioning in this market, partnerships naturally expanded,” and predicted, “If Camter's strengths are refined and scaled up, partnerships will expand more rapidly.”

Building a self-sustaining growth ecosystem with a flywheel structure

In the early days of its establishment, when the main business model was a platform, Camter focused on increasing app downloads and membership numbers. As of October this year, the cumulative downloads of the Camter app reached 53,000, and the cumulative membership was counted at 30,000. CEO Jeong stated, “Although the growth rate of Camter app downloads and membership numbers has slowed, transaction volume has increased instead. The difference before and after the launch of experiential tourism products is clear.”


The future Camter envisions is a ‘flywheel structure’. A flywheel refers to a structure where the business model creates a self-sustaining cycle that accelerates continuous growth on its own. Once a customer is acquired, it is about making that customer have a better experience, and the positive customer experience then attracts new customers. According to Camter, customers introduced through the experiential tourism products launched this year are converted to its rental services if they lack equipment, use additional services such as storage or cleaning, and eventually introduce commerce linked to local businesses to complete the virtuous cycle.

CEO Jeong stated, “Camter has a self-sustaining structure because it encompasses everything from rental to cleaning and management, as well as content linkage. This structure becomes more robust as external partnerships or partner companies are combined,” and emphasized, “A scalable size that can scale up not only B2B and B2G but also global inbound tourists visiting Korea will be created.”

In fact, following the popularity of K-content, Camter is also preparing experiential tourism products targeting global inbound tourists. Utilizing the Ellysian Gangchon Resort campsite, a PoC (Proof of Concept) is being conducted from September to November, allowing the experience of picnic sets and K-camping. Additionally, inbound business in cooperation with related organizations and companies is also being prepared. CEO Jeong stated, “We are at the stage of conducting various PoCs. Through this, Camter's global services will gradually expand.”

Aiming for IPO achievement through innovative growth

Camter continues its relationship with Dongguk University Campus Town, which began in 2023. As part of the preliminary startup package project, it moved into Dongguk University Campus Town and has been growing with various support. CEO Jeong expressed satisfaction, stating, “Without the support of Dongguk University Campus Town, we would have faced difficulties in the early stages of startup,” and added, “We received great help not only in office space and funding but also in education and marketing.”


In particular, Camter plans to strategically respond to sustain innovative growth. It will focus on strengthening B2G cooperation, building inbound channels, and expanding experiential services. CEO Jeong stated, “Camter is receiving distinctly positive responses in the camping market. Rather than being satisfied here, it is important to expand quickly,” and added, “We will strive to strengthen cooperation with public institutions and companies to plan and develop various experiential tourism products and operate them stably.”

Camter's goal is to ‘connect people, society, and the environment through technology, creating a world where everyone enjoys easy and enjoyable experiences’. CEO Jeong reiterated, “Based on this goal, we want to create a sustainable leisure and tourism ecosystem,” and emphasized, “We aim to solve current tasks step by step and ultimately pursue an IPO as a stepping stone for sustainable growth.”

IT Donga Reporter Park Gwi-im (luckyim@itdonga.com)

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