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PT Trinusa Travelindo, operating as Traveloka is an Indonesian technology company focused on travel and ticketing. Operating a services website and mobile application of the same name and based out of Jakarta, Indonesia,[8] Traveloka is active in six countries,[4] and in 2022 remained the largest online travel app in Southeast Asia.[9] Founded in 2012 as a travel search engine,[1] it now also offers services such as cruises, attraction tickets, activities, transportation rentals, and restaurant vouchers.[10] It also provides financial services such as credit[2] and insurance.[11] Classified as a unicorn company[12] and regarded as functionally similar to Expedia,[10] in 2022 it was valued approximately at US$3 billion.[13]
History
Founding (2012-2013)
Traveloka was established in February 2012[4][1] by three Indonesian software engineers: Ferry Unardi, Albert, and Derianto Kusuma.[14] Unardi and Albert had met while studying computer science in the United States, while Unardi met Kusuma while both were interning at Microsoft.[15] All three ultimately worked in Silicon Valley.[16] Unardi, frequently encountering travel difficulties when visiting his hometown of Padang, came upon the idea of a website to ease travel logistics in Indonesia.[14] As he had no business experience, he began an MBA program[17] at Harvard Business School. However, in early 2012, the Indonesian tech market was attracting international investors[15] and e-ticketing was becoming more popular,[18] so Unardi dropped out early[19][10] and the three founders[10][19] moved to Jakarta and established Traveloka.[17]
After an early iteration was completed in February 2012, Traveloka launched in September 2012 as a travel metasearch site,[20] serving as both an aggregator and search engine for flights in Indonesia.[17] In November 2012,[20] the company raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from East Ventures.[18] With Unardi serving as CEO and Kusuma as chief technology officer (CTO),[6][21] they also implemented 24-hour customer service in multiple languages[16] and moved from a metasearch model to a full online travel agency (OTA)[22] and ticket reservation website.[17] Also in September 2013, the company announced a series investment by Global Founders Capital.[1] Redesigning the portal and relaunching[15] in September 2013,[20] Traveloka began allowing users to purchase flights using various payment methods,[17] taking between a 10 to 15% commission on bookings.[15]
Expansion (2014-2018)
Traveloka introduced hotel bookings[23] in July 2014. It then launched apps for iOS and Android in August 2014,[20] and by the end of the year, had 10 million visitors each month.[15] In May 2015, comScore ranked Traveloka as Indonesia’s number one flight search and booking service.[18] Traveloka first entered Thailand in 2015,[16] and by September, it had partnerships in Southeast Asia with 33 hotels and airlines.[15] The company expanded rapidly in 2016, opening regional offices in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines[12] and Vietnam.[24] Train tickets and food features were added that year,[23] as well as ticketing for Indonesian tourist attractions.[25] In Traveloka's first public funding round since 2013, in July 2017 Traveloka raised $350 million from Global Founders Capital, GIC, the Qatar Investment Authority,[10] and Expedia, which also became a minority investor.[8] The investment valued Traveloka at over US$1 billion, making Traveloka a unicorn company.[26] Funds were earmarked for developing machine learning and artificial intelligence,[27] investments, and hiring more staff.[25]
By August 2017, according to Reuters, Traveloka had incorporated "100,000 hotels, apartments and other forms of accommodation" in Southeast Asia into its booking options, and had partnerships with around 100 airlines.[25] It added online check-ins in December 2017, as well as airport transportation services via a taxi company.[20] In December 2018, the company acquired three online travel agencies: Pegipegi from Indonesia, Mytour from Vietnam, and Travelbook from the Philippines, all previously subsidiaries of Recruit Holdings in Japan – for $67 million.[28] In May 2018, Traveloka launched a mobile app feature offering dining information.[29] 2018 also oversaw the resignation of Kusuma from his role as Traveloka's chief technology officer, citing a "clash of aspirations".[30]
New services (2019)
By 2019, Traveloka was one of four unicorns in Indonesia,[31] as well as the largest online travel startup in Southeast Asia.[32] Traveloka opened a research & development (R&D) center in Bangalore, India in January 2019.[33] In March 2019, AirAsia permanently withdrew sales of its flights from Traveloka, citing Traveloka's lack of explanation for several AirAsia Indonesia flights that had been unlisted the month prior.[34] By 2019, Traveloka had ventured into financial services for the first time.[23] In 2019, it started a credit card scheme with Bank Rakyat Indonesia, marking the company's move into financial services.[32]
In June 2019, Traveloka introduced a new lifestyle business division,[35] branding the feature Traveloka Xperience.[10][32] Initially available in Thailand,[23] it allowed for searching and booking travel-related activities and lifestyle products.[36] It also launched a home protection insurance plan as well as visa insurance coverage in Indonesia in 2019.[36] Traveloka began listing villas and apartments to book in September 2019.[37] By October 2019, it had launched its PayLater card with Bank Rakyat Indonesia.[32] Traveloka also developed a shariah-compliant health insurance program called Bebas Handal for Muslim customers alongside Hong Kong-based FWD Group. Movie-booking in Thailand was also added in November 2019 through Major Cineplex.[36] Also in 2019, Traveloka partnered with the Indonesian Tourism Ministry on the Wonderful Indonesia tourist marketing campaign,[38] also collaborating with the Singapore Tourism Board to open trip kiosks in Singapore.[39] Traveloka in 2019 had 2,500 staff members and 20 products, with around 50 million downloads of its app. That year, a survey of 1,204 Indonesian "millennials" showed that 79% used Traveloka regularly.[6]
Pandemic and recent (2020-2023)
During the early months of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Traveloka began experiencing surges in refund and rescheduling requests.[40] With flight bookings dropping to essentially zero,[41] in April 2020, Traveloka laid off 100 staff members[40] and over the next half year, refunded around 150,000 flight tickets equating to $100 million.[42] In response, the company began adding features such as its "Buy Now, Stay Later" feature[30] to allow for flexible booking.[41] To help restore its cash flow during the pandemic, its Xperience sub-brand was also used to host online activities like cooking classes with professional chefs.[30] Traveloka also began advertising other online experiences and "flash sale livestreams," and began bundling flights with COVID-19 tests.[43]
Through Traveloka Xperience, in June 2020, Traveloka began listing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and rapid testing in Indonesia,[44] booking around 600,000 people for vaccinations over the next year and a half.[41] Also in June 2020, Traveloka started its Traveloka Clean Partners campaign to align with government health measures.[45] A new funding round was completed in 2020 with the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) as a lead investor.[46] Demand for travel accommodation was recovering by October 2020, according to Traveloka,[42] and by the end of 2020, Traveloka's travel business had returned to profitability.[11] After reports that Traveloka was considering a SPAC merger in the United States,[47] Traveloka halted discussions over a SPAC IPO with Bridgetown Holdings in September 2021.[48] In 2021, Fast Company named Traveloka one of its 100 Best Workplaces for Innovators[49] in the International category.[50] In January 2022, Traveloka remained the largest online travel start-up in Southeast Asia, and was valued at $3 billion.[51] In September 2022 it raised USD$300m. In 2022 as well, Traveloka closed Traveloka Mart, Traveloka Send, and Traveloka Eats, all of which[52] had been launched during its diversification of services during the pandemic.[53] After appointing brand ambassadors,[54][55] in April 2022, Accor properties in 13 countries were added to Traveloka's booking platform.[5]
Traveloka is a services and e-commerce site available in multiple languages. Classifying its products and services in the categories of travel, local services, and financial services,[4] the app has been downloaded over 100 million times[2] and has around 40 million monthly active users. It is claimed that the website lists around 150 airlines covering a total of 200,000 domestic and international flight routes. More than 2,500,000 hotels, villas, and guesthouses in 100 countries are also listed.[10] According to Traveloka, it allows for searching and booking[15] in areas such as transportation and lodging,[10] and also provides lifestyle products and services, for example attraction tickets, activities, car rental, and restaurant vouchers.[2] Customer services are provided 24-7 in local languages. The platform allowed four methods of communication in 2017: a desktop portal, a mobile portal, iOS and Android applications, and direct calls.[16]
In relation to financial services, it offers wealth management services, insurance,[11] financing and credit. Other features in the Traveloka platform include the prebooking service Buy Now Stay Later, the live-streaming service LIVEstyle, the blogging platform Kampoeng Traveloka, and the multiplayer game Sodaloka.[2]
