ER
THE sluggishness of the business of buying and selling airplane tickets at both online and conventional travel agencies is directly correlated with the decline in business in the surrounding sector, including the airline industry. The shift in the trend of purchasing tickets from offline to online has not been of much help.
According to Deputy Chairman of the Association of The Indonesian Tours and Travel Agencies (Asita) Budijanto, said PT Garuda Indonesia Tbk has had a severe impact on the sluggish stretching of the travel agency industry with an equity of minus IDR40 trillion.
“Reservation of airline tickets through online and conventional travel agencies is still experiencing a downturn and this year it is certain that there will be no significant movement. The decline was not due to a reduction in efforts or promotions carried out by travel agents,” he said.
He explained, however, that due to pandemic conditions, tightening of travel, and weakening purchasing power, airlines also experienced a decline in business. Although during the pandemic there has been a shift where purchases using online travel agents dominate up to 80% compared to conventional travel agents, this has not had a significant effect.
This is because, Budijanto said, this shift occurred at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was affected, with sales far below average so that it did not have a significant impact on airline ticket sales in online travel agents as a whole.
Usually, continued Budijanto, during high season momentum such as Idul Fitri, there is an increase in turnover in the range of 50-100% or 1.5 to 2 times compared to normal times for business actors in the travel agency sector as a whole.
Before the pandemic, sales of airplane tickets in conventional travel agencies still dominated, with 60% of conventional travel agencies and 40% on online travel agent platforms.
Budijanto estimates that by the end of the year, the purchase of airplane tickets at the travel agency will not undergo any repairs.
Unless, he said, the government spends its budget in the aviation sector and relaxes tightening social restrictions. The implementation of genose at the airport which is said to be carried out in June is also a breath of fresh air for the travel agency and aviation industry.
For your information, the condition of the country’s tourism travel agency industry is still bad due to the pandemic. Based on Asita’s latest data, as many as 90% of the total 7,000 travel agency companies have temporarily closed since April 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. [antaranews/photo special]
