Another umrah-focused OTA pops up in Indonesia in response to massive 2017 fraud case
JAKARTA – Another umrah-focused online travel marketplace has popped up in Indonesia, building on the wave of new offerings that include Umrohnesia, Umrah.id, and e-commerce giant Tokopedia starting to sell pilgrimage packages.
The rising number is geared to meet the ample demand, as around 1 million Indonesians perform the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia every year, and, as in the case of Umrohnesia and new platform Travalal, also respond to the 2017 First Travel scam that defrauded some 57,000 would-be pilgrims of around 848 billion rupiah ($61 million).
The newest platform Travalal finished its prototype in 2018 and currently has onboarded 90 umrah travel agents, according to founder and CEO Joyo Diharjo. Travalal also targets the wider Muslim travel segment with 3,000 curated Muslim-friendly hotels, and 2,000 halal restaurants across USA, Australia and other countries of the Asia Pacific.
“I have been running my own travel agency since 2012 but in 2017 my aunt was one of the victims of the First Travel fraud case. From then, I was interested to explore halal tourism,” Joyo told Salaam Gateway.
The case motivated the entrepreneur to build an online travel marketplace that can better protect travel agents and customers against fraud.
“In this case, trust is the main factor,” said Joyo.
Travalal verifies travel agent partners as one way to prevent fraud.
“To avoid scams, we include a payment gateway where agents do not hold cash before the tourists get the right package,” said Joyo.
He also hopes going digital will help traditional travel agents better organise their sales. Travalal allows travel agents to use its SaaS management system to set up their own sales management dashboards.
“With the management system, travel agents can give information and transact online orders for Muslim travellers to find umrah packages, best hotels, tourist attractions, restaurants, as well as all the needs of Muslim travellers like wifi, tickets for public transport, and others,” said Joyo.
The company charges a monthly subscription fee ranging from 300,000 rupiah ($21.60) to 2 million rupiah ($143.80) depending on the services requested.
“Besides monetising SaaS subscription fee, we also have transaction commission fees,” said Joyo.
Travalal has been making the rounds of start-up competitions in Indonesia, including participating in Innovation Lab Program organised by the state-owned Bank Rakyat Indonesia, and Next Dev by another government-owned company, the telco Telkomsel.
Joyo said Travalal is seeking funds for growth.
“We are preparing to hold a fundraising or seed funding round to expand our business this year,” he told Salaam Gateway.
“This year, we want to have 200 travel agents as partners, 5,000 hotel partners, 8,000 restaurant partners, and attract 1,100 umrah pilgrims.”
(Reporting by Yosi Winosa; Editing by Emmy Abdul Alim emmy.abdulalim@salaamgateway.com)
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