Set as part of the Traveloka’s Online Xperience feature, the virtual tours offer 15 destinations in seven provinces in Indonesia. Currently, visitors can start exploring numerous locations in Bali under certain themes and more destinations will be gradually added, in such locations as East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua.

One of the virtual tours in Bali, dubbed “Negara: Uniqueness of West Bali”, allows visitors to learn about the makepung (water buffalo race), visit Medewi Beach, which is known as a surfers’ paradise, observe the Bunut Bolong, a huge tree with a large hole in its trunk, travel to Ekasari Tourism Village where its residents adhere to different religions and explore West Bali National Park.

Hosted by licensed guides, each tour will last for 60 to 90 minutes via video conference platform Zoom with prices starting from Rp 50,000 (US$3.40). Visitors can also find out more about the destinations by interacting with the guides and can plan for their future trips when the pandemic ends.

Terry Santoso, Traveloka Xperience’s head of marketing, said that the tour could be a promotional tool for travelers in countries where the app is available; help guides to innovate and stay productive; develop digitization of the travel industry; and expand people’s access to a wide array of tourism products.

“We’re also boosting the recovery of tourism as we’ll be connecting the virtual tours with artificial intelligence and big data marketing. Those who participate in the tours will receive recommendations from our app about where they can stay, how to reach the destinations by land and air transportation, as well as the nearest restaurants,” Terry said during a press conference on Thursday.

Terry said the virtual tours were based on people’s online activities as they adjusted to the stay-at-home policy. Google keyword search volume trends saw a fourfold increase in "online classes" from March to April. Furthermore, according to Traveloka’s weekly customer survey about COVID-19 from March to April, 78 percent of its respondents wanted to gain new experiences at home while waiting for the pandemic to subside.

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