Travelers to Indonesia will soon be able to make more arrangements online. Pic: Pixabay

Indonesian travel agents given new online portal to reach more customers

IN a bid to connect potential customers with online travel agencies, as well as conventional travel agencies, Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism is launching a new online marketplace for travel and tourism services in October.

Called ‘Travel Exchange Indonesia’, or TXI for short, the service will help travelers purchase services and products, such as airline tickets, hotel bookings, car rentals, and tour packages conveniently and easily online.

The first-of-its-kind initiative from the government is aimed at promoting Indonesia’s travel and tourism industry to its core target markets – Singapore, China, Malaysia, Australia, Japan and Korea.

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With the new online portal the government hopes to help digitalize conventional brick-and-mortar shop travel agencies, which are mostly small and medium enterprises, helping them to compete in the digital era and reach a bigger audience.

“Sales will be conducted by the travel agents themselves,” said Tourism Minister Arief Yahya as reported in e27.

“The government will do the promotion through Tripadvisor, with the promotional materials being uploaded into it,” he added.

Travel tech start-ups such as Traveloka, Alitrip, and C-Trip have all agreed partnerships with the ministry. The ministry has also secured partnerships with search engine companies Google and Baidu, and travel review platform Tripadvisor.

The government also operates another online market place called PasarProdukBUMN, which is exclusively for products made by state-owned enterprises.