THE SURVIVAL STRATEGIES IN E-COMMERCE INDUSTRY: A CASE OF TRAVELOKA INDONESIA

As almost all activities can be executed with just a smartphone and internet connection these days, companies should consider to provide online services unless they do not wish to stay in the market any longer. That does not exclude tourism industry which involves airlines, hotels, trains and other types of accommodation and transportation. People, including Indonesian, prefer to sit and relax while planning their trip rather than waiting in a long queue just to book their plane tickets. This gives Traveloka the ability to stay on the top of the as number one solution for all kind of travel needs. Traveloka itself was established as the founder, Ferry Unardi, often had difficulty in plane reservations, especially when he wanted to return to Padang, Indonesia, from the United States. Even though it began as a search engine to compare the price of airline tickets from various other sites, Traveloka succeeded in becoming a ticket reservation website, where users can place an order on its official website. A while later, hotel booking services are also available on the Traveloka website.

Traveloka started on early e-commerce era which made Traveloka encountered several obstacles as other e-commerce companies had to deal with at that time. One of them was to gain customer trust. People were not feeling comfortable about giving their money without seeing the products with their own eyes yet. Especially in Traveloka case, where people actually had to hand a big sum of money for it is a plane or hotel reservation. But Traveloka has proved themselves as trustworthy to the market with their security guarantees such as a secure payment gateway (Exhibit 1) and customers’ personal data protection. Traveloka also managed to expand its business in Southeast Asia, namely Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. However as time passes by, customer trust is no longer the only obstacle they have to face in this e-commerce industry.