Despite making up only 20% of Southeast Asia’s travel market in 2012, Kapoor shared that Indonesia is now at the front of the pack in Asia Pacific.
Hotels in Indonesia have been increasingly switching their focus to local OTAs instead of international players this year, according to Ryan Kartawidjaja, deputy CEO of Pegipegi.com.
Sharing at the PATA Innovation Forum, held in partnership with Phocuswright, on September 7, he talked about how the online booking company has been making frequent visits to hotels and creating videos to train staff on operating its system.
For Tiket.com, their strength lies in being able to “reach out to more than 4,000 sub-agents so even smaller agents can sell to the market,” said Gaery Undarsa, co-founder and managing director of Tiket.com.
Having identified after-sales as a cumbersome problem that results in customers having to go offline to do refunds and reschedule their flights, Traveloka’s head of product, Caesar Indra, shared the company’s recently launched ‘Easy to Reschedule’ function as a way to bridge the online-offline gap and bring about convenience.
Another crucial marketing strategy that has helped the local OTAs is the use of television advertising to drive brand recognition.
“It’s easier to educate the market about our company after they’ve seen us on TV. According to a survey, consumers believe this adds to the brand’s credibility,” said Kartawidjaja.
The rise of local OTAs, as well as LCCs, have contributed to the growth of Indonesia’s total and online travel market, according to Chetan Kapoor, research analyst, Asia Pacific of Phocuswright, who moderated the PATA Innovation Forum.
Despite making up only 20% of Southeast Asia’s travel market in 2012, Kapoor shared that Indonesia is now at the front of the pack in Asia Pacific.
He added that while LCCs accounted for 81% of the country’s online travel market in 2015, local OTAs have been responsible for educating and luring travellers to shop online.
This is complemented by the rapid increase in mobile bookings.
Traveloka’s Indra shared that a majority of his OTA business is on mobile, while Pegipegi.com’s Kartawidjaja and Hans Ebenhahn, founder and CEO of Nusatrip, revealed that mobile accounts for 70-80% and 50% of their businesses respectively.
For Tiket.com, revenue growth for the past six months hit 400%, despite them pushing for mobile only late last year.
Simply put by Indra, “This is because for many Indonesians, their first exposure to Intenet is via mobile; Laptops are more expensive.”