Ticket.com Commitments Present Adaptive And Relevant Innovations On Tourist Needs

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The tourism industry faces serious challenges when faced with a pandemic. Unspecified conditions have resulted in people having to live with limited space of movement, so tourist destinations are suddenly empty of visitors and tourism businesses are losing their livelihoods. The number of foreign tourist arrivals (tourists) to Indonesia in 2021 reached 1.56 million visits, down 61.57 percent compared to the number of foreign tourists visiting in the same period in 2020 before the pandemic, based on data from the Central Statistics Agency. This decrease in the number of tourist visits has an impact on decreasing turnover in various industrial sectors, such as the hotel sector which experienced a decrease in hotel occupancy rates. A little flashback, during the pandemic, tourism industry players continue to try not to stay silent, as did tiket.com, the first Online Travel Agent (OTA) in Indonesia. "We believe that the need for travel cannot be separated from the lifestyle of the community. Especially when faced with the pandemic conditions, people need more and more entertainment for healing," said George Hendrata, Chief Executive Officer, tiket.com in a written statement, Wednesday, September 28. George continued, the pandemic conditions that limit people's space for movement and create boredom actually give birth to new trends for holidays, such as staycation, workcation, hobby tourism, to various entertainments held in online formats, such as music concerts. Seeing this trend, tiket.com rushed to launch various innovations aimed at customers to enjoy tourism comfortably. For example, the CLEAN ticket feature which ensures accommodation has implemented health protocols properly, smart refund and rescheduled features, COVID-19 test options. tiket.com also continues to expand partnerships with well-known partners to present various online entertainment in the community, one of the most popular is the JKT48 Concert as well as the online streaming horror series, Nelusur. "Our guide in operating is to always pay attention to customer needs, to customer-centric, all the product and service innovations we launch are based on customer needs," George said. After almost two years of being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indonesian tourism industry is now entering a new phase in 2022. We can see the recovery of the tourism industry from the increase in the number of foreign tourist arrivals to Indonesia which touched 111 thousand in April 2022, an increase of around 172 percent compared to the previous month, and a significant increase of up to 499 percent compared to the number of visits in April in 2021. Not only that, according to BPS data, the number of foreign tourist visits to Indonesia from January to April 2022 also experienced a very high increase of 350 percent, compared to the same period in 2021. After predicting an increasing number of tourists in the coming months, the government through the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (Kemenparekraf) has targeted the number of foreign tourist visits to Indonesia to reach 1.8 to 3.6 million individuals by 2022. "The rise of the tourism industry also presents various challenges in itself. Reflecting on the impact of the tourism sector due to the pandemic, tourism business actors must prepare themselves to face unpredictable challenges. We on tiket.com are committed to always presenting innovations that are relevant to people's trends and needs," said George. tiket.com comes with the Lowest Price Guarantee (JHT) feature. With this feature, consumers don't have to bother comparing plane ticket prices, accommodation or activities. Even if consumers find the price cheaper, tiket.com will replace the difference twice. Plus, tiket.com always presents various promos that can help make it easier for consumers to plan their journey. tiket.com also provides 24-hour Customer Service (CS) services every day. Consumers can easily find customer service contacts on the tiket.com application, namely contacting e-mail and the telephone number listed. "The various services and innovations that we provide are a form of our commitment to play an active role in the recovery and growth of the tourism industry. We focus on increasing the enthusiasm of the community to travel as well as helping to improve the capabilities of tourism business actors," concluded George.