Indonesian tourism gets ready for digital invasion

JAKARTA. At a recent Tourism National Coordinating Meeting (Rakornas) II, Tourism Minister Arief Yahya talked about the “digital invasion” and how technology is reshaping consumer habits.

Arief talked about the Law of Disruption.

“Sooner or later every company, institution and country is going to face disruption and the digital era is going to make it come faster. One of the main targets of this digital disruption is conventional companies that have built up a good reputation over the years,” he said.

Arief gave the example of online transportation brands like Uber, Grab and Go-Jek, as well as Airbnb.

Airbnb challenges the traditional way people book hotels.

He also discussed the company Netflix and how it had contributed to the death of offline video rental stores.

“At the very beginning, any innovation causes disturbance and doubt among society, but as time goes by, it becomes the new normal,” he added.

Realizing this, the ministry began digitalizing the management of homestays last year.

“There are now 2000 homestays registered on the Indonesia Travel Exchange (ITX) online marketplace,” Arief said.

With this platform, all homestays are being put into one integrated marketplace that helps owners manage their business.

This new breakthrough has created a positive impact.

“There's been an increase in visitor interest in homestays in big cities across the world, from 10 percent in 2016 to 15 percent by 2020. In Asia, the trend has gone from 2 percent in 2016 to 5 percent in 2020,” told Arief.