Hong Сhen’s Chinese-language site yuriselfmedia.tw focuses on travel in Asia, especially Japan and South Korea. He does decently well, with over 55,000 unique monthly visitors. (Here’s the site in English.)
Hong has been a Travelpayouts partner for a while, and his links and widgets for Booking.com, Agoda, Klook, and Trip.com have brought him steady but modest earnings.
But in December 2024, he started getting anxious about his business. He had plenty of ideas for winter travel articles, but how could he earn money the rest of the year? He asked Eugenia at Travelpayouts for advice.
She gave him three suggestions:
- Spend part of the winter writing posts for other seasons and spring-summer destinations.
- Create niche guides for specific months or seasons, such as “Hokkaido in March.”
- Make sure Drive is fully enabled.
Drive… What?
Eugenia explained that Drive is a single AI system that powers all Travelpayouts AI-tools and works across the entire site. Drive can:
- Switch links to Travelpayouts offers
- Link relevant keywords automatically
- Insert contextual recommendations
- Display smart previews
- Show targeted offers
Some of these features were already active on Hong’s site, such as switching links to Travelpayouts, but Targeted Offers was not.
This feature uses AI to analyze user behavior and intent, then displays the most relevant travel offers in real time. Setup is minimal, and once enabled, it works autonomously.
“Trust me, it’ll help,” said Eugenia. “And if not, you can just disable it.”
Hong shrugged. “Ok, let’s try.”
3х revenue surge
Targeted Offers started bringing in bookings for Hong in March 2025. At first, it only showed offers from one brand, Trip.com, but it still brought in about $250. By July, Hong earned $1,700 with this tool, most of it from Agoda.
☝️Here and below, the numbers include both confirmed and pending (potential) bookings.
What started as an experiment turned into a major revenue driver. By the end of 2025, Targeted Offers brought more than $5,000, making up nearly one-third of total earnings generated via Drive.
Hong was able to track his bookings using Travelpayouts’ free Content Analytics dashboard:
Hong admits he had low expectations:
I really appreciate how it automatically tracks highly interested buyers. It’s truly impressive. In the past 30 days, it has generated 90 orders for me. Without Targeted Offers, they would have been lost.
A new chapter for Hong
Hong is clear: enabling Drive doesn’t mean bloggers can stop working. Content is still king, and you need to find ways to grow your traffic. That’s why content and growth remain his priorities.
Thanks to his increased income, Hong is now spending a year living in Japan and writing about it. While there, he’s expanding his presence on YouTube, Instagram, and Threads to drive traffic to his blog — with Drive monetizing that traffic in the background.(Check out our article on driving traffic using social media.)
Lessons for bloggers
So, what can we learn from Hong’s successful 2025?
- Choosing the right tools can make the difference between doing ok and doing great.
- Whichever tools you use, your readers still need quality content.
- Successful bloggers are always looking for ways to improve. Have a solid blog? It may be time to move into social media.
- Consolidating monetization into a single system like Drive on Travelpayouts reduces complexity and saves time.
As Hong says:
If you can’t produce valuable content, then even the best tools won’t help. But if your content is valuable and you’re struggling with too many travel platforms, slow response times, or not reaching income thresholds, then Travelpayouts Drive is definitely the right choice!