Interview with Eka Ginting, chief executive officer, Indo.com

Indo.com witnessed 40 percent decline in booking following bombings in Bali late last year. The company’s chief executive officer Eka Ginting told EyeforTravel.com’s Ritesh Gupta that strong signs of recovery are yet to be seen.

Ginting shared information about operations of his company and more. Excerpts:

Last year in August, in an interview you told me, Indo.com works closely with over 300 hotels, offering real-time availability and bookings on these hotels, with up to 70 percent discount. How has Indo.com strengthened its offering in the last six months?

A couple of things have happened on the Indonesian front:

a. We are finalising with one international chain who has over 30 properties in Indonesia, and waiting for agreements from a number of other Indonesian and international chains. We should add in the order of 50 to 100 hotels this year.

b. We are developing a plan for partnerships with local companies in destinations like Jogja, Bandung, and others to sign up more properties, from the luxury to the bed and breakfasts.

How have bombings in Bali last October affected your operations?

On the day of the bomb last October, we were busy contacting our guests to make sure they are OK, and communicate this through our web site.

As you can imagine, within an hour or two, we literally got hundreds of inquiries from friends and families of travelers to Bali. One of the restaurants happened to be a partner,  an advertiser on indo.com, so photo of the front of the restaurant from our site ends up being displayed by a number of TV stations in Japan and in Europe.

Bookings immediately went down by about 40 percent. We have yet to see strong signs of recovery.

Which markets are emerging as promising ones for Indo.com?

The two countries that are most resilient - the ones with lowest percentage drops in the number of bookings - are Malaysia and Indonesia.

Interestingly, countries who have  crept up into the bottom part of the top 20 countries of origins are Denmark, East Timor and Ireland.

You had mentioned apart from China, other major Asia markets are Singapore and Malaysia, and to some extent, Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong. How have these markets shaped up from business perspective?

Singapore and Malaysia are going strong. Though not necessary through online bookings, new airline routes from China to Bali also help bring more travelers from China.

Last year you told me, in Singapore, you were working with DBS to establish credibility. You had also mentioned: "We are engaging in promotion through trusted local portals. We would seek to replicate and do the same things." How has this shaped up?

We have engaged in online promotion with Yahoo Singapore, MSN Singapore and eNets.

How a destination approach can encourage bookings and add extra revenue to the bottom line?

We still strongly believe that travelers choose their destinations first before which airline to fly there and in which hotel to stay. However, as it is clear from the Bali example, focusing on a particular destination exposes you to quite a substantial systemic risk. Thus, diversification of destinations is definitely needed.