THERE’S no disputing the fact that Traveloka, Indonesia’s homegrown travel unicorn, has come a long way in the 10 years it’s been around.
What started out as a flight meta-search in CEO and co-founder Ferry Unardi’s attempt to enter the online travel space in 2012 has become a lifestyle superapp, offering flights, hotels, experiences, restaurants, food delivery and financial services. It has raised a total of US$1.2b in six rounds of funding, and it’s expanded beyond Indonesia to other markets in South-east Asia – Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia. It currently boasts 40m monthly users, up from the 20.4m in 2016, the year it started tracking this number.
“When I joined (in February 2014),” said Alfan Hendro, chief operating officer, “searching travel was still very hard to do – to book a hotel, consumers would spend 30 minutes to an hour….