Tripvisto gets series A funding ahead of Indonesia’s travel boom

Indonesia’s mount Bromo, a popular travel destination for local and international tourists. Image source: Sara Marlowe

When Valadoo shut down earlier this year, some became a little pessimistic about online tour package booking sites in Indonesia.

But now, one contestant could be pulling ahead of the pack. Tripvisto launched just over a year ago, in August 2014, and today the startup announced that it raised a US$1 million series A investment from Shanghai-based Gobi Partners. With this investment, Tripvisto is the second Indonesian travel startup to raise a series A round – at least on record. The other one is ticket booking site Traveloka.

See: Why Traveloka could be Indonesia’s first startup unicornTripvisto founder Bernardus Sumartok says the startup will use this funding to increase the inventory of tour packages, to hire new talents, and to ramp up marketing. Bernardus adds that the product will be improved through a recommendations engine and a mobile application.

Tripvisto is a marketplace that works directly with global and local travel agencies and tour operators to offer tour and activity packages. It targets Indonesia’s emerging middle class, both those traveling abroad to explore other countries and those travelling within Indonesia.

You can book a four-day trip to Bangkok and Pattaya, for example, or a two-day trip to Komodo Island. The company says that tours to Thailand are its most booked product.

Its closest competitor in Southeast Asia is Singapore’s BeMyGuest, Bernardus says. In Indonesia, sites like TripTrus and Gogonesia have a similar model.

“What makes us different [to BeMyGuest] is we believe that we better understand the Indonesian market, which is Southeast Asia’s most populous country,” Bernardus says. “Tour packages require customized considerations based on the characteristics of your customers. This may be an obstacle for scaling up, but it also comes with huge opportunities due to high ticket size.”

The average order value on Tripvisto, Bernardus claims, is US$180 per transaction.

Tripvisto might benefit from Gobi Partners’ experience in the travel segment. The firm is also the lead investor in Tuniu, which is a tour package provider in China.

“We will apply some of the lessons we learned from working with Tuniu to enhance Tripvisto’s business development,” Thomas G. Tsao, managing partner at Gobi Partners, said in a statement. “By leveraging the momentum from Indonesia’s demographics and economic growth, we believe that Tripvisto will be able to make fantastic tours possible for more outbound Indonesians and domestic tourists.”

In terms of traction, Bernardus only revealed that Tripvisto “posted ten-fold growth in monthly revenue over the past year.”

With Indonesia’s middle class continuing to grow, international and domestic travel will see an increase in demand.