By Hanim Zulaikha Zulkifli
Over 60 million downloads
40 million active users
7 countries in APAC (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Australia)
Angelica Chan has been leading Traveloka’s team as the Country Market Manager for six years. She started her career as a hotelier and was one of the original team of Traveloka when it entered Malaysia. With over 20 years of experience in the tourism industry, Angelica has steered Traveloka Malaysia to be the go-to travel app that people never knew they needed.
Angelica sits down with Malaysian Business, where she shares what Traveloka’s Travel Superapp is all about and her aspirations for the company.
Q: What is Traveloka - Your Travel Superapp all about?
AC: We have been around in the market for 10 years, and today we have evolved into a travel superapp in Malaysia. Traveloka offers accommodations hotel and flight bookings to discover experiences and attractions. We provide 24/7 customer service and various online and offline payment options. Traveloka is the most popular travel and lifestyle booking app with more than fifty million users in the Southeast Asian region. Globally, we team up with over 1mill hotels, accommodations, guest houses, more than 200 airlines and 250 tour travel operators to provide the best deals to our customers.
People are always looking for lifestyle experiences, and in the app, we have a dedicated blogging section where we will share the relevant details on what-to-eat and where-to-go etc. Another feature that we have is instant notifications on price alerts and flight changes to cater to our consumers’ budget and travel agendas.
Apart from accommodations and experiences, Game Farm is also available on our app since September 2021 for our users to enjoy more than 20 choices of games. Our aim is to fulfil consumer’s lifestyle and travel desires.
Q: What is Traveloka’s uniqueness?
AC: Traveloka Malaysia is a travel superapp that offers lifestyle experiences, and its mission is to fulfil customers lifestyle aspirations. As I mentioned, the products at Traveloka are all fully integrated, which makes us a one-stop-shop for our consumers as they can access like a million hotels, villas and guesthouses in a hundred over countries. They can also experience about 15,000 local activities, including beauty and spa, entertainment, sports, and workshops. Other than that, consumers can also book covid tests with ease at participating clinics and hospitals, and some locations even offer drive-thru Covid-19 swab tests.
People love the flexibility, and Traveloka has a unique feature that allows consumers to search and book multiple airlines simultaneously. Also, consumers can book a round trip with two different airlines, and I assure that is one of our strengths.
We also have a multi-city flight booking feature that allows our consumers to make flight bookings to different cities all at once and make that Southeast Asia trip a reality.
Q: Planning to add more products?
AC: Innovation is the bedrock of everything that we do in Traveloka. Innovation through technology is even more important because consumers nowadays cannot live without a phone. It is important to understand customers needs. Therefore, we need our customer’s feedback in improving the app. We will definitely roll out new products in the future to ease our customers’ needs and at the same time make Traveloka the go-to app.
Q: Traveloka’s response to Covid-19?
AC: Just like any other industry, we are also impacted. However, there were quite a few initiatives that we rolled out when the first Movement control order (MCO) was announced. During the lockdown, people’s movements were restricted, and it was hard for people to go to clinics for consultations. That is why we launched our healthcare partner, Dr Anywhere, which is Traveloka’s online consultation administered by locally registered doctors and certified mental wellness providers to help our consumers.
In 2020, we also collaborated with the Malaysian Health Travel Council and the Malaysian Medical Association. We launched the Medical Heroes Appreciation Campaign to reward medical workers for their tireless work in helping to protect Malaysian communities from the pandemic. Healthcare workers get a special discount of up to 40% via Traveloka Travel Superapp.
In addition to that, in December 2021, during Traveloka’s 12.12 campaign, we joined hands for a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme with Uncle Kentang, also known as Kuan Chee Heng, a Malaysian humanitarian activist. The campaign helped those affected by the pandemic. Traveloka encourages customers to participate in this social initiative and offers an extra RM5 off their purchases.
Another thing that we rolled out during the first MCO was Buy Now Stay Later. During the lockdown, people were not allowed to travel, and we wanted to generate revenue to help the tourism industry. This allows our consumers to book the hotels now and stay during a specific time frame that is given.
When the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme launched, Traveloka worked closely with hotels all around Malaysia and checked whether their staff were fully vaccinated or not. Vaccination labels help the hotels gain consumer’s trust and play an important role in decision-making, especially travelling during the pandemic.
Another initiative is that Traveloka works hand in hand with the Malaysian Budget Hotels Associations to help budget hotels around the country grow their business with Traveloka by having an online presence. We help them understand consumer behaviours better.
As part of our initiative to help the Malaysian economy, we collaborated with Tourism Malaysia when they announced the domestic Langkawi travel bubble and it was a success.
We are currently promoting domestic tourism, which is in line with what Tourism Malaysia announced occasionally.
Q: Could you share the insights on Traveloka’s Malaysian travellers?
AC: During the pandemic, we did consumer research. It is important to understand our consumers’ behaviour. So over for the past two years, we realise that consumer’s behaviour has changed due to the pandemic. Through this research, we found out that most of our customers are millennials aged between 20-40 years old. More than 50% of the decision-makers are female based on consumer research.
Also, the majority of our clienteles travels with their extended families. Due to SOPs, it is easier to travel by car instead of taking a flight when travelling in a large group. When our consumers make bookings, price, promotions, services and destination flexibility play an important factor in consumer’s decision-making.
Lastly, 80% of our consumers made bookings online showing a major shift during the pandemic. Nowadays, handphones have become an essential part of our lives.
Traveloka is currently having a Super Huat Sale from 24 January – 6 February 2022. Grab up to 10% off on all flights, extra RM20 off for Malaysian airline flight and lots more. Traveloka Travel Superapp is available on App Store and Google Play.
