People as Priority: George Hendrata of Tiket.com

 "Our advantage is our people," states George Hendrata, CEO of Indonesian online travel agent (OTA) Tiket.com. The term "people" in fact comes up no less than 30 times in our interview, more than four times as frequently as the average guest on the Indo Tekno podcast. This philosophy, quite common throughout the broader Djarum Group, espouses not just Tiket.com employees, but also the platform's obsession with customer service.  Tiket.com seeks to democratize travel for the average Indonesian, and make it fun and effortless. The company's employee and customer-centricity however has been put to the test in 2020. The recently released Google-Temasek-Bain report anticipates a near 60% decline in the Southeast Asia OTA segment in 2020. Tiket.com has sought to avoid headcount reductions despite the unprecedented headwinds that the pandemic has fanned. George notes that the "green shoots" of recovery have recently sprouted up in the form of a gradual rebound in domestic travel.Although George views competition in OTA as much more "sane" that in e-commerce and ride hailing, the company has had to defer plans to break-even in 2020 for another couple years due to COVID. But Tiket.com is optimistic around the prospects of industry recovery in 2021 from this year's USD14b, en route to a longer term Google-Temasek forecast of USD60b for the region by 2025.(Transkrip Bahasa Indonesia di sini)