T

he daily deal business, which offers promotional fare vouchers for products or leisure activities through websites, is expected to continue growing in Indonesia due to the increasing number of Internet users in the country.

According to a recent study conducted by Frost & Sullivan, Indonesia would see a sharp increase of Internet users from 47 million in 2011 to 175 million in 2016.

Business is promising because more and more people are familiarizing themselves with the idea of online shopping.

'€œDaily deals have definitely changed the industry of leisure, including travel and tour, and people'€™s lifestyle because people today do not have to waste their time going from one place to another to look for products that they might need,'€ Association of Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies (Asita) chairman Asnawi Bahar told The Jakarta Post, referring to people aged between 15-40 years old.

'€œThis business also helps to reduce promotional costs because merchants do not spend much money to advertise their products or service in the media such as through television, newspaper and radio.'€

Currently, there are some 20 players in the daily deal business industry such as Groupon Disdus Indonesia and Living Social, and the figure is predicted to grow by around 5-10 percent a year, he said.

Even the country'€™s largest travel and tour company Panorama, for instance, has recently entered this business by establishing Travelicious in July.

Contacted separately, managing director of the country'€™s largest daily deal, Groupon Disdus Indonesia, Yogen Suganda, said their business grew by up to 20 percent every quarter due to strong demand from the customers.

'€œOur members have exceeded 2 million people now and we can make almost 5,000 transactions every single day,'€ Yogen told the Post.

He said vouchers for restaurants, beauty products, and domestic travels were the top three best selling products at Groupon, pushing the company to further strengthen this segment to tap into the growing demand.

To do this, they are planning to set up sales representative office in Yogyakarta and Medan, North Sumatra, in the near future to better penetrate the market in those cities, especially for travel and leisure activities.

'€œSince we entered the market in 2010, we have had representatives in Bandung [West Java], Surabaya [East Java] and Denpasar [Bali],'€ he added.

Febnita Eka Widjayanti, a 26-year-old pharmacist, said she started to buy vouchers for food, hotels and cooking utensils on the internet almost a year ago because she found it more flexible and cheaper.

'€œI got a 50 percent discount for pizza at one of the best pizza restaurants in Jakarta and once I only spent Rp 3 million [US$312] to rent a nice villa in the heart of Bali for three nights, including free pick-up service from the airport. Isn'€™t it cool and cheap?'€ Febnita said.

She said she was able to save around Rp 700,000 for accommodations in Bali during her recent trip with vouchers she bought.

Regarding fraud in the online industry, she said she only bought products through certain daily deals.

Yogen and Johanes Chang from Living Social said they used a payment security system to build the reputation that their transactions were secured.