Traveloka and Tiket.com Promote Transactions at the End of the Year

The government plans to provide a stimulus for the tourism industry of IDR 1 trillion by the end of the year. Digital-based travel service provider startups (Online Travel Agent / OTA) Traveloka and Tiket.com welcome this with various discounts to boost transactions. Traveloka will hold an Epic Sale 2020 promotional program starting this month.

This national unicorn hooked thousands of partners in the tourism industry to provide discounts of up to 80%. The promotional program will run from 5-11 November. This discount applies to various services ranging from hotel reservations, flight tickets, Traveloka Xperience, airport transfers, shuttle, or intercity travel to insurance.

Last year’s Epic Sale, the rate of visits to the platform increased by 70 times. “Consumers can enjoy this special promo to meet their travel and lifestyle needs,” said VP of Market Management at Traveloka Accommodation Shirley Lesmana at the virtual launch of the Epic Sale 2020 program, Wednesday (4/11).

Traveloka Co-Founder Albert said the program was in line with the regulator’s steps to boost the tourism industry at the end of this year. “This is expected to continue in line with the government’s efforts to restore the tourism sector in Indonesia and activate the business operations of various related business actors,” he said.

Traveloka Launches Various Services Suit the Pandemic Situation

In addition to promotions, Traveloka has launched a variety of services that are considered in accordance with the corona pandemic situation. These features include virtual tours, Covid-19 risk tests, live streaming, and donation packages starting from IDR 11 thousand to IDR 27 thousand per portion to support Traveloka Eats restaurant partners last May.

The national unicorn business is starting to recover. “In the three domestic markets that we have, namely Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, the recovery is going strong,” said President of Traveloka Group Operations Henry Hendrawan as quoted from Tech In Asia, last October (20/10).

In Indonesia, hotel transactions reached around 70-75% compared to before the coronavirus. The number of weekly active users on Android is also recovering from the sharp decline last March, although it is still far from being compared to the pre-pandemic.

He also said that the company would break even (break-even point / BEP) at the end of the year or early 2021 if the travel industry recovered at least 50% compared to before the Covid-19 event. Besides, it will soon be profitable.

Tiket.com Prepares Health Protocol Strengthening

Another OTA startup Tiket.com is also preparing to welcome the government’s stimulus to boost the tourism industry. Tiket.com Chief Marketing Officer Gaery Undarsa hopes that the stimulus will be right on target.

“For example, the stimulus must be able to encourage people to be brave again to travel and to enter tourism actors with more attractive prices,” said Gaery during a virtual press conference, last Monday (2/11).

The company will prepare to strengthen health protocols in response to the stimulus. “We hope that we can contribute and be open in whatever way to help the tourism industry,” he said. In addition, the company is changing its product from long-distance tourism to near home, by adding a wide selection of attractions and attractions nearby.

Then, create a standardization program for health and hygiene protocols called Tiket Clean and booking service called Tiket Flexi. Apart from that, it provides free travel insurance for users. The government plans to provide a stimulus of IDR 1 trillion for the tourism industry in December.

This is in the form of a 50% discount on the tourism package per Education Identification Number (NIK). With this stimulus, the government hopes that there will be a multiplier effect of 4.58-5.85 times or a value of IDR 9.34 trillion – IDR 11.93 trillion.

“We hope that Indonesia’s economy will grow by 4.5-5% next year,” said Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan as quoted in a press release, last September (25/9).