Zomato has over 500,000 monthly visitors in Indonesia, embraces social dining concept

Dining out in restaurants is a social activity for most people. Understanding this, India’s restaurant listing site Zomato has pushed the social concept further by revamping its website and mobile app. The site no longer looks like the “Google for restaurant listings”, and now more closely resembles “Facebook for food lovers”.

The company officially rolled out the changes yesterday onto the websites for all of the 12 countries it operates in. Users now are required to log in using their Facebook account if they want to use Zomato’s services. Inside, they will find a timeline feature which showcases their friends’ dining activities and reviews on Zomato. In addition, they can follow new friends inside the Zomato and get recommendations from them.

Zomato still lets its users discover restaurants through its search function. But now hungry diners can see which restaurants their friends have recommended inside the directory. You can also find these changes on Zomato’s mobile apps.

(See: 17 food apps and startups in Indonesia)

Regarding the company’s operations in Indonesia, the team now has 18,500 restaurants listed for the Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi areas. The team takes pride in its current database as they constantly update data such as menu prices, GPS coordinates, and opening hours. In fact, 20 out its 30 team members in Indonesia are tasked with making sure the site’s data stays up to date.

Indonesia country manager William Tunggaldjaja said the Indonesia team has recorded the highest growth among all of Zomato’s international operations. It currently has over 500,000 monthly visitors in Indonesia, and is still recording at least 20 percent month-to-month growth. He is confident this figure will continue to go up, especially once they expand into Bandung and Bali.

Zomato’s rivals in Indonesia include OpenRice, Abraresto, IndoTable, MakanLuar, and Qraved.