Jakarta, 27 January 2021 - Traveloka, Southeast Asia’s leading technology company offering digital-based travel & lifestyle services, today highlighted a series of technology-based innovations launched by the company during the pandemic throughout 2020, as well as travel and tourism outlook for 2021. These innovations aim to strengthen the company’s commitment as a leading technology company in Indonesia and support the government’s economic recovery efforts, particularly the tourism sector that has been significantly impacted by the pandemic.
Sandiaga Uno, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy said, “Until now, the COVID-19 pandemic remains a real threat. Health protocols continue to be our main priority amid our efforts to recover the tourism sector, and these efforts require the support from all stakeholders. As a technology company with a very large and expansive number of users and partners, Traveloka can contribute to help ensure health protocols that are being implemented by tourists as well as tourism players, and to help accelerate the economic recovery, especially in the tourism sector.”
Albert, Co-Founder Traveloka said, “As a technology company, we always put product and feature innovations as our main priority to improve users’ security, simplicity, and convenience in using our service. Amid the ongoing pandemic, we also want to ensure that the various technology-based innovations and initiatives that we have would not only fulfill the evolving needs of our users, but also support the government’s efforts in handling the pandemic. By adhering to health protocols to anticipate the changing behaviours of users amid the pandemic, we have launched various innovative products and features that allow them to fulfill their travel and lifestyle needs, which include travelling under strict health protocols, special offers to flexibility of product and service usage.”
Domestically, the public’s interest to travel remains high. Based on an internal survey to Traveloka users conducted between 28 May to 16 August 2020, 67% of respondents chose vacation as their most preferred activity when the pandemic ends. Last year, 26% of Traveloka users said they had gone on vacation with 72% of them going for a road trip outside their hometown. The most popular destinations in 2020 for staycations or road trips were Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya, followed by Malang, Yogyakarta, Solo, Semarang, and Bali. Meanwhile, another internal survey, almost half of them planned to go for a trip by plane. Hence Traveloka predicted that air travel would soon increase as the main transportation for travelers. Additionally, staycations and road trips will remain a favorite among users in 2021. The availability of COVID-19 vaccine in Indonesia is also predicted to boost the popularity of out-of-town destinations this year.
Various technology-based innovations and initiatives conducted by Traveloka throughout 2020 are part of the company’s efforts to adapt with the pandemic situation that caused the decrease in the number of daily users on Traveloka platform by 70% since March 2020, while increase of the refund requests by 10 times with thousands of requests per minute in April. These innovations were positively welcomed by the public with an increase in the number of daily users by almost 100% from June until late 2020. Among the innovations were OnlineXperience that offers more than 100 unique sessions designed to encourage users to still enjoy their free time at home with their family members. Since 15 June 2020, more than 100,000 users have enjoyed various experiences provided there. Launched in October, Traveloka Eats Delivery provides delivery service from over 200 favorite restaurants to users’ homes. Traveloka also launched Traveloka COVID-19 Test which is accessible via Traveloka Xperience to help users take polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and rapid tests. It is expected to facilitate users who need to prepare travel documents required by the government as an effort to suppress COVID-19 transmission. Throughout 2020, around 200,000 COVID-19 tests have been booked by Traveloka users.
Other innovations included a Clean Partners campaign to help Traveloka’s partners in implementing health protocols and provide options for users. From August 2020, Traveloka users are able to use CleanAccommodation to choose accommodations that enforces the CHSE (Clean, Health, Safety and Environment) protocols recommended by WHO and the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy. To date, more than 1,000 partners in 90 cities have implemented the protocol. Traveloka also introduced CleanTrip Bus & Shuttle to provide extra protection for passengers during their journey. Collaborating with over 20 partners, this program has attracted more than 36,000 users since it was launched in July 2020. Lastly, CleanXperience service helps users choose one of over 1,000 partners from 12 industry types in over 64 cities who have committed to implement protocol standards such as social distancing, attendants wearing protection gear, and body temperature check for employees and customers.
According to senior economist from the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), Aviliani, the implementation of health protocols by tourism players and destinations is one of the most important supporting factors in recovering the tourism sector in Indonesia. “Tourism is one of the sectors that will recover the fastest in 2021 due to the fact that tourism has become the basic need of Indonesian people. The ease of access to various technology-based travel services that have been curated and adapted to the pandemic situation, such as offered by Traveloka, will significantly contribute in supporting the recovery efforts.”
"The efforts to restore the tourism and health sectors must be balanced. Traveloka are always ready to support the government's efforts to deal with the pandemic, one of which is by promoting the CHSE protocol in tourist destinations by collaborating with all relevant stakeholders. Through technology-based innovations and collaborations, we are also optimistic that we can contribute positively to the recovery efforts of the national economy, especially the tourism sector," Albert concluded.
