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Existing travel apps to hold ground amid new player entries
The local OTA market may not be so welcoming to newer players, as it tends to follow a winner-takes-all pattern.
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A Lion Air Boeing B737-900 is pictured on the taxiway of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, on Oct. 13, 2016 (The Jakarta Post/-)
M
ajor airlines are encroaching on the online travel agent (OTA) market currently dominated by established independent players by launching their own booking apps, but analysts suggest the new entries are unlikely to have a major impact.
Malaysian budget airline AirAsia launched its “super app” in 2020 in Malaysia and expanded to Indonesia in 2022.
Homegrown carrier Lion Group, which includes Lion Air, Batik Air and Wings Air, as well as its affiliate Super Air Jet, also launched an OTA service called BookCabin in October last year.
Lion Group controls 65 percent of the domestic airline market, followed by flag carrier Garuda Indonesia Group at 26.6 percent and the rest by other airlines.
Consulting firm Redseer’s analysis, however, pointed that the local OTA market may not be so welcoming to newer players, as it tends to follow a winner-takes-all pattern.
Across regions, such as the United States, Europe, China and India, the top two OTA players control more than 70 percent of the online travel market.
“What’s even more interesting is that the top player across a region is often two to three times larger than the second-biggest competitor. In Indonesia, this pattern holds true, as seen with Traveloka and Tiket.com,” the report noted.
