In an era of completing transactions with a single tap on a mobile phone, some people might still recall a time when things were not so simple.
A little over a decade ago, planning a vacation was quite the process. After deciding on a destination, booking everything from flights to hotels could take days of visiting travel agencies, airline companies and independent tour companies, since every booking must be made and paid for individually, never mind braving the traffic.
While cumbersome, most people just accepted this as the norm of those times. It was complicated and frustrating, but it was the way things were done back then.
But not Ferry Unardi.
After experiencing firsthand the complicated process of booking a flight home from the United States, Ferry teamed up with his friend Albert to innovate a solution that they named Traveloka.
Armed with only a laptop and high spirits, the duo launched Traveloka on Feb. 29, 2012 as a simple metasearch engine to help consumers find the best airfare. Within a year, Traveloka had transformed into an online travel agent (OTA), providing a booking and payment system.
As a technology company that is constantly evolving to stay relevant and to offer innovative solutions, Traveloka took flight in 2015 to become the first Indonesian tech start-up to offer its products and services outside the country.
Ten years after launch, Traveloka is now positioned as a leading lifestyle superapp in Southeast Asia, providing booking services beyond transportation and accommodation to meet growing consumer demand in the travel and lifestyle sectors.
Available on Google Play for Android and the App Store for iOS, the Traveloka app has been downloaded more than 100 million times and boasted more than 40 million monthly active users as of January 2022.
Traveloka currently offers more than 20 products and services, ranging from flight and accommodation bookings to food deliveries and financial services, allowing users to easily manage their travel budgets as well as their personal finances while on the road.
In 2018, Traveloka developed the PayLater payment method, which has now spread across the archipelago. Three years later in 2021, Traveloka marked a milestone by becoming the first Southeast Asian tech company to introduce PayLater Virtual Number, essentially a virtual credit card for paying in installments.
Beyond travel, the company offers Traveloka Eats, its own iteration of the digital food experience for users to exploit. The service provided dine-in vouchers on its launch in 2018, and then in 2020, it tapped the opportunity that emerged during the COVID-19 mobility restrictions to expand into Traveloka Eats Delivery, a food delivery service that provides consumers with more options, convenience and safety.
Traveloka launched Xperience in 2019 to introduce and contribute to the growth of local tourism and lifestyle businesses, offering attractions and services ranging from city tours, seminars and workshops to salon and spa getaways.
Innovation-driven purpose
Innovation is Traveloka’s cornerstone in all it does as a tech company.
Co-Founder Albert emphasized that innovation is the key to growth and adaptation in providing relevant and timely solutions in response to consumer aspirations.
“Over the past decade, we have delivered a variety of products and services, provided convenience to our more than 40 million consumers, engaged with millions of partners and collaborated with various stakeholders to contribute together to the national economy and tourism industry,” he said.
The company has recruited over 2,000 of the best talents in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States to realize its commitment to contributing positively in the areas where it operates. This is the company’s foundational principle for creating innovations to serve its consumers, partners and other stakeholders.
At the same time, the company is also committed to fostering and nurturing a safe and supportive environment for its employees, so they can grow and innovate at their own pace.
As part of this commitment, Traveloka upholds diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities for all employees, no matter their background or identity, including in departments like technology and engineering that are typically dominated by male employees. The company has an overall male to female employee ratio of 60 to 40.
Its efforts have been recognized by the industry as well as the greater community of tech workers.
In August 2021, Traveloka was named as one of the 100 best places for innovators to work in the world among 1,500 global entries. Fast Company bestowed Traveloka with the Best Workplace for Innovators 2021 award in the international category for its dedication and commitment to fostering innovation at all levels of the company.
“This award from Fast Company underscores the culture of innovation that we built from the very beginning,” said Traveloka Co-Founder Ferry.
“At Traveloka, we believe in DICE-H [dedication, intellectual honesty, curiosity, empathy, humility], values that we have always upheld and are embedded in our company DNA.
“We are proud to continue to cultivate a workforce capable of creating new solutions, and we are always on the lookout for the best world-class talent to join our amazing team. In the midst of excellent business growth, we continue to encourage the growth of new innovations that allow users to access lifestyle services wherever and whenever they need,” Ferry said.
Weathering COVID-19 via tech-based solutions
The COVID-19 pandemic struck the tourism industry particularly hard in Indonesia, like everywhere else in the world. As businesses struggled to stay afloat, innovation is one of the main components, if not the most vital one.
“Innovation is the cornerstone of our corporate culture and business strategy. The pandemic has changed the way we run our company: it challenges us to innovate, try new ideas and respond to changes in consumer trends and behavior that have occurred due to the pandemic,” said Ferry.
Traveloka’s leading innovations have helped not only the company, but also its partners in weathering the challenges. Some examples include Clean Partners, a collaboration with around 9,800 partners across Southeast Asia to implement the principles of CHSE (cleanliness, health, safety and environmental sustainability); Traveloka LIVEstyle, a livestreaming service that provides lifestyle recommendations and virtual tours on the Traveloka app and social media; and the Buy Now Stay Later program, a prebooking service that more than 22,000 users have utilized to keep their sights on better times to come.
When travel and tourist destinations were closed in the early months of the pandemic, Traveloka quickly pivoted to other services that were extremely vital for the health and safety of its users sheltering at home, such as OnlineXperience, a service that offers more than 100 unique online events, including virtual tours, that has garnered more than 100,000 users since its launch in June 2020.
Meanwhile, Traveloka Eats and Eats Delivery took a collaborative approach, partnering with more than 30,000 restaurants, cafes and other merchants to deliver the services and products of Traveloka’s digital food experience.
It also offered bookings for COVID-19 testing services in collaboration with around 140 partners operating a combined total of more than 850 coronavirus testing services, both in-clinic and drive-thru. To date, users have booked more than 600,000 COVID-19 tests through Traveloka.
Diversification is crucial to innovating, and Traveloka stepped up its game to provide more services for millions of users so they could stay healthy and safe, and in compliance with the government’s health protocols.
The Traveloka PayLater Virtual Card Number, launched last year in partnership with state-owned Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), allows users in Indonesia to use their PayLater credit on major e-commerce sites.
Also at the end of 2021, the company launched a gold investment service, the maiden product of its financial services arm, in collaboration with a state-owned non-bank financial institution. Traveloka aims to provide financial services and products so users can more easily manage their finances and access investment instruments as part of its efforts to contribute to the government in achieving its financial literacy and inclusion goals.
Great deals with safety and convenience
As people around the world have started to resume activities and embrace the “new normal” amid the ongoing pandemic, they can finally sate their long-delayed wanderlust, albeit with a stronger emphasis on safe and responsible travel.
Even so, the “new normal” brings with it new adjustments to the travel and tourism industry, both minor and major. Responding to the situation, Traveloka has implemented several new features to improve overall user experience, such as online check-in services for flights and hotels as well as its Pay upon Check-in facility that offers more flexibility.
In marketing, Traveloka has incorporated gamification to offer retailtainment, creating unique and fun experiences that have been proven effective in engaging and building trust with customers.
At least 500,000 Indonesian users jumped at the chance to play Traveloka’s first multiplayer game, Sodaloka, since its launch in October 2021. Meanwhile, Kampoeng Traveloka gives users a platform for sharing their unique journeys from the day they join up and has shown positive response from users, even trending on Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
Traveloka’s latest endeavor combines an international mobile gaming competition with promotional deals, another first for a booking platform in Southeast Asia. The Game Farm International Championship was held from Dec. 6 to Dec. 19, 2021 with more than 900 Traveloka users taking part in the regional leg of the competition.
Meanwhile, the recently launched Reward Zone offers users thousands of free Traveloka Points simply by playing games on the Traveloka app, giving users more reason to spend time on Traveloka for a more exciting and enjoyable experience.
Aside from these experiences offered through in-app features, Traveloka also offers a range of attractive deals through its annual EPIC Sale, which has been held five times in Indonesia, twice in Vietnam, twice in Thailand and once in Singapore.
The 2021 EPIC Sale in Indonesia involved approximately 81,000 partners and garnered more than 12 million app visits. This resulted in transactions of up to 1.5 times more during the EPIC Sale in October compared to the March event, and an even greater contribution to national tourism and industry workers.
Active roles for Indonesia
As part of its commitment to contributing to tourism growth in Indonesia, Traveloka has been actively supporting the government’s National Economic Recovery program.
In the first half of 2021, the company operated Traveloka COVID-19 Vaccination Centers in collaboration with the Health Ministry and the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry, as well as regional administrations.
The vaccination centers were installed in Yogyakarta, Bandung and South Tangerang, as well as at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and the MNC Building in Jakarta, vaccinating a total of more than 60,000 people.
Through its collaboration with the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry, Traveloka helped to promote domestic tourism by focusing on staycations and road trips during the first phase of the nationside campaign.
Another campaign Traveloka has been involved in includes “Proud of Indonesian-Made Products” (#BanggaBuatanIndonesia), which promotes the tourism products and services of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Banyuwangi, East Java. It also participated in ASEAN Online Sale Day (AOSD) to help market the products and services of its Indonesian SME partners to users across Southeast Asia.
In other areas where it operates, Traveloka is an official partner of the SingapoRediscover voucher program launched by the Singapore Tourism Board, which provides incentives to tourists to stay and experience the various accommodations and attractions Singapore has to offer.
It has also partnered with the Tourism Authority of Thailand in the “We Travel Together” campaign for domestic tourism, the Hai Phong City Tourism Board’s local tourism development program, as well as the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Center (HTPC), with which Traveloka signed a memorandum of understanding from 2021 to 2025 on collaborating and supporting promotional activities to develop Ho Chi Minh City’s tourism industry.
A message of gratitude
On marking another milestone on its journey, Traveloka expresses its gratitude to its users, partners, employees, government and other stakeholders that have made possible every step on Traveloka’s journey to success.
A decade on since its establishment, Traveloka remains committed to growing together with Indonesian consumers as a regional lifestyle superapp that provides end-to-end solutions to meet their evolving travel and lifestyle demands. Traveloka reiterates its commitment to contribute to the country through continuous innovation and collaboration that provide functionality and access to its users and partners.
“We are grateful for the support and trust given by our consumers, partners, the government and other relevant stakeholders so that Traveloka has been able to make many achievements over the past 10 years,” said Ferry.
“Our journey does not stop here. We will continue to realize our commitment to give more positive contributions to the country, together with our partners.”
