Staycation Trend Helps Traveloka, Tiket.com, Pegipegi to Survive Corona

The startup business that provides tourism services, aka online travel agent (OTA), has been hit by the corona pandemic. However, the trend of traveling near home or staycation is driving up transactions on the Traveloka, Tiket.com, and Pegipegi platforms amid falling service requests.

Pegipegi noted an increase in the staycation trend based on hotel reservation data during the Christmas and New Year 2021 holidays. “So far, the trend of staycation is still in big cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Malang, and Bali,” said Corporate Communications Manager Pegipegi Busyra Oryza, Tuesday (26/1).

He did not specify the magnitude of the increase. However, Pegipegi’s survey of 1,490 respondents during 9-16 November 2020 did show that 75% wanted to travel at the end of the year. Busyra also said that the trend of staycation has been seen since the enactment of the transitional large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in June 2020.

He considered, this travel method was chosen because it was a safe alternative to vacation during the pandemic. He estimates that staycations will remain a trend this year, even though the increase in positive daily cases of the coronavirus in Indonesia is still high. That is because there is Covid-19 vaccination, as well as the implementation of health protocols in tourist attractions and hotels.

“We have a Clean and Safe Stay feature to make it easier for customers to find hotels or accommodations that apply health protocols. We also continue to urge all people to continue to apply health protocols when traveling,” he said.

The Survey Shows that People Plan to Travel at the End of the Year

Research from SurveySensum of 500 respondents in five major cities on December 10-15, 2020 also showed that 37% planned to travel during the holiday season at the end of last year. As many as 54% of them traveled to the nearest city.

Based on a Traveloka survey during May-October 2020, as many as 30% of consumers want to travel again at the end of last year. The number of respondents surveyed varied, ranging from 901 to 3,291 people per month. To Kr-Asia journalist Khamila Mulia, Traveloka Co-Founder Albert Zhang said that people are starting to want to travel.

Based on the company’s internal data, ground transportation ticket bookings have increased from August to the end of 2020. “Most of them drive to the nearest city,” Albert said as quoted by Kr-Asia, last month (1/12/2020). “The staycation trend has increased since June 2020, according to internal data.”

The staycation trend is also one of the factors driving transaction recovery on the Traveloka platform, especially in Indonesia. This unicorn is also holding a Traveloka Epic Sale promotion in November 2020, which has increased transactions by 13 times. Meanwhile, transactions in Vietnam reached 100% to pre-pandemic levels of the coronavirus since July 2020. In Thailand, the recovery is 75%.

“Users increasingly want to have a vacation,” said Traveloka Head of Corporate Communication Reza Amirul Juniarshah in a virtual press conference, Tuesday (26/1). “As many as 38% want to stay in hotels outside the city or staycation.”

Staycation in Indonesia is Becoming a Trend

Apart from Pegipegi and Traveloka, Tiket.com sees a staycation trend in Indonesia. This OTA startup held an annual local Online Ticket Week (OTW) discount party on November 23-30, 2020. As a result, the majority of transactions were hotel reservations.

“Daily hotel booking transactions increased 118 percent compared to the week before the LOCAL OTW period,” said Tiket.com Public Relations Manager Sandra Darmo Sumarto, two weeks ago (6/1). He noted that consumers are interested in staying at hotels close to their homes.

Traveling with this method is also known as a staycation. “Currently, people’s preferences for vacationing are still near their homes,” he said. Most bookings during the long year-end holidays are in Jakarta, Bali, Bandung, Surabaya and Yogyakarta.

Sandra assessed that the increase in hotel bookings shows that people want to vacation during the corona pandemic. To anticipate the risk of contracting the coronavirus, consumers also choose tourist destinations that are close to home.