RedDoorz and Booking.com Prepare Strategies for Continuing PPKM

Hotel chain startup RedDoorz and travel accommodation startup Booking.com have prepared a strategy to keep occupancy from falling. 

This refers to the risk of extending the government’s policy for the Implementation of Micro-emergency Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM).

President Director of RedDoorz Indonesia Mohit Gandas said the government’s regulations made people’s mobility limited. To reduce the risk of contracting Covid-19, people are more careful when traveling and using hotel services.

As a result, the company’s service requests are also affected. However, RedDoorz has not been able to elaborate further on how big the impact will be. “We are still monitoring its movement,” Mohit said, Thursday (15/7).

Meanwhile, data as of June shows the hotel occupancy rate at RedDoorz is still growing, 40% to 50%. The company also claims that the occupancy rate is better than the industry’s growth. Even so, the company has prepared various ways to prevent occupancy from falling. 

One of them is by utilizing digital technology, for example creating informative and up-to-date content related to the needs of the community during the pandemic. “We also encourage our staff at the property to vaccinate as soon as possible,” Mohit said.

The company is also trying to improve the cleanliness of the hotel during the pandemic. He added that the accommodations under the management of RedDoorz are currently certified by the Hygiene Pass.

Hygiene Pass is a certification program aimed at accommodation and property partners of RedDoorz, in collaboration with the Indonesian Association of Public Health Experts (IAKMI).

Booking.com Releases News Features

Meanwhile, Booking.com released various new features to address emergency PPKM. This new feature allows accommodation partners to choose various health and safety measures as needed, such as hygiene, sanitation, social distancing and food safety.

Partners can immediately choose from a list of steps they take. Their choices will be displayed on the Booking.com site on their property page in the health and safety section. Then tourists can see the display as a form of transparency.

“As the situation evolves, we are continuously updating the support we provide, including increasing transparency to consumers around health and safety information when booking accommodation on our platform,” said Vikas Bhola, Regional Director, South Asia at Booking.com in a press release last week (6/7).

It is known, hotel occupancy has indeed fallen since the beginning of the pandemic last year. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) noted that the Covid-19 pandemic caused the hotel room occupancy rate (TPK) to decline to 32.2% in March 2020.

The figure fell further to 12.7% in the following month. Meanwhile, the occupancy rate began to improve in May 2020 and continued to show an increase until the eighth month of last year.

Tourism Startups Urged not to Rush for IPO

Several large-scale new start-ups such as Bukalapak and several Unicorn and Startup companies are ready to aim for an initial public offering or IPO on the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

Business and Marketing Observer of Managing Partner Inventure, Yuswohady said startup companies in the tourism sector should not rush to target investors by listing on the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

Yuswohandy sees Traveloka as a declining industry, so it will be difficult to conduct an IPO. “Tourism will take a long time to recover, even if it is forced to do an IPO the price will not be good, the position of interest from investors will not be much,” he said.

He said the tourism industry cannot be enjoyed with digital services. “Before the pandemic, tourism was very stretched. But now, tourism is really being discussed, the top form is about 3 years to be stable,” he added.

In addition, Traveloka has also recorded an increase in requests for refunds and rescheduling for its travel services due to PPKM.

The startup providing digital-based tourism services or online travel agents (OTA) stated that the increase had occurred since June when Covid-19 cases soared.