Jakarta: Indonesian online travel giant tiket.com has announced plans to expand into Cambodia and Laos, marking the next phase of its regional growth strategy across Southeast Asia. The move underscores the company’s ambition to deepen its footprint beyond Indonesia and tap into emerging tourism markets in the Mekong region.
During a meeting with Cambodian and Lao journalists at the company’s Jakarta headquarters on October 15, Gaery Undarsa, co-founder and chief marketing officer of tiket.com, said the company is focused on understanding local markets before pursuing full-scale entry. “Hotels are already there. We have a complete list of Cambodian motels and flight options as well,” Gaery noted. “If we want to go there on a local level, the most important part will be understanding the right go-to-market strategy — how to do marketing there and increase awareness. Marketing to Indonesians is very different from marketing to Cambodians.”
Founded in 2011, tiket.com has grown into one of Indonesia’s largest online travel platforms, with more than 50 million users. According to Sandra Darmosumarto, the company’s public relations manager, tiket.com currently offers flights from 116 domestic and international airlines, access to 3.6 million accommodation listings worldwide, and activities in 77,000 destinations.
Gaery acknowledged that market scale and consumer behavior present challenges for expansion into smaller nations like Cambodia and Laos. “Even in Indonesia, with a population of 280 million, not everyone books travel online yet,” he said. “In countries like Laos and Cambodia, the online transacting population may only be around 40 to 50 percent. The number becomes very small, so it doesn’t always justify the investment because the cost to build a platform is similar regardless of market size.”
He emphasized that while tiket.com is already connected to global travel networks offering Cambodian and Lao destinations, achieving deeper market penetration would require localized strategies — especially in activities, bus transport, and events.
“The best way is to consider Southeast Asia as one big region — like Europe,” Gaery suggested. “We already have free trade agreements for most products, and if we look at the region as one integrated market, tiket.com definitely has a chance to grow further.”
Recognized in Fortune Indonesia’s “40 Under 40” (2023) list, Gaery has played a key role in scaling tiket.com into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. Following its merger with Blibli and successful IPO in 2022, the company became part of the Blibli Tiket Group.
As Southeast Asia’s travel industry rebounds in the post-pandemic era, tiket.com aims to strengthen its presence as a regional player, combining its customer-centric innovation and vast inventory with deeper local engagement across emerging markets like Cambodia and Laos.
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