GoIndonesia: Aother Local Travel Site

A local travel site seems having an endless appearance in Indonesia online world. GoIndonesia is a new travel site with the motto "The real and The First Online Travel Agent in Indonesia". GoIndonesia was founded by Karya Harmoni Indonesia, a part of the Kaha Group. It was launched by early December 2011.

Mr Yusuf IJsseldijk, a Managing Director & CEO of PT Karya Harmoni Indonesia, in his press release asserted, "A real online travel agent means the customer will get the immediate confirmation as soon as possible without waiting. Online term for us is everything is done electronically by the system thus customers will get what they want immediately after making the reservation, so there should be no delay."

This new GoIndonesia currently serve the payment using Internet Banking and ATM BCA. Later they will accept payment by other banks. In addition, Go Indonesia will implement advanced security payments using Visa International CyberSource technology to detect fraudulent credit card transactions.

Mr Yusuf IJsseldijk isn't an unknown name in the tour and travel world, especially for Southeast Asia region. The last ten years he had held several key positions in the Accor Group and Wotif Group, including General Sales Manager of Accor Indonesia. It allows him to know the characteristic of Indonesian market.

For the website itself, I'm not too impressed, if compared to similar sites. I think the appearance of Rajakamar and Tiket.com has more character. For UX department, "Cari Hotel" (Find Hotel) tab, "Cari Dengan Peta" (Search by Map) and "Pencarian Hotel Cepat" (QuickSearch) should be reorganized because it's still quite confusing. The changes from "Cari Hotel" (Find Hotel) to "Cari Dengan Peta" (Find Hotel by Map) menu isn't so smooth and suddenly display a static map at below area. It eliminates checkbox button as well. I think this isn't recommended best practice for a site.

There is another feature, “Siapa Yang Pergi" (Who goes)? which isn't clearly given the expected answer because the radio button " Diri Sendiri" (You) and "Tamu Lain" (Others Guests) can't be selected. What is be able to be chosen from there is just a prospective place to stay.

In addition, the database isn't complete and the search results aren’t focus yet. For example when I enter the keyword "Ayana" which is one of famous hotels in Jimbaran Bali, GoIndonesia will display other search results and the location is nowhere near Ayana.

It seems less relevant if GoIndonesia also feature hotels in the Southeast Asia region due the name itself. Supposedly they encourage domestic and foreign tourists to explore Indonesia tourism more.

What development will be done by GoIndonesia in the upcoming year? In an interview with Travel Daily Asia, Yusuf mentioned a loyalty program, a fully functional BlackBerry applications, B2B platforms with various stakeholders - corporations, government, and travel agents; and interactive map contains hotels, tourist attractions, restaurants, playgrounds, and other entertainment venues. I certainly hope GoIndonesia can improve the site becoming more attractive and comfortable on the UI and UX side.

It seems that 2012 would be an interesting year for travel websites development in Indonesia.