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Traveloka, Southeast Asia’s largest online travel startup, plans to launch financial services in Thailand and Vietnam as it eyes a U.S. listing through a blank-cheque company, its president said.
The 9-year-old Indonesian company, which counts Expedia and China’s JD.com among its backers, is seeing a strong rebound in its business after the COVID-19 pandemic pummelled demand.
The company’s president, Caesar Indra, told Reuters in an interview that Traveloka’s Vietnam business had surpassed pre-COVID-19 levels, is nearly back to normal levels in Thailand, and is at half of pre-COVID level in Indonesia. “The worst has happened and now we’re well prepared for 2021. Domestic travel is driving recovery,” he said.
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Many travel companies that have survived the pandemic have used the pause as an opportunity to reinvent themselves, or at least to launch new product lines that they may or may not have contemplated before masks and hand sanitizer became required accessories.
That was one of the four takeaways from Skift’s Online Travel and Distribution Summit, which took place in a virtual event on February 17.
Pandemic-Era Product Innovation
Saying
Certares raised more money for investing in the last year than it has in the past eight, founder and senior managing director Greg O’Hara announced that the private equity firm, with huge investments in travel, is looking at more real estate investments.
More travel executives get their mission-critical industry news from Skift than any other source on the planet.Tell me more
Whether you’re planning a local holiday in Vietnam, looking to purchase Covid-19 PCR tests in Indonesia, or want flowers delivered to someone special in Thailand, Traveloka says it has an app for that.
Southeast Asia’s biggest online travel startup has made use of the pandemic by focusing inward to diversify its local offerings. For the company’s leaders, that meant having to dive deeper into lifestyle and financial services both areas where consumers in the region are hungry for solutions, and ones that they feel could drive interest in a potential U.S.-listed IPO for Traveloka. Company leader say that could happen shortly.