JAKARTA, October 29th, 2012 – Lombok is currently trending across all Wego’s travel metasearch sites around the world, but growing fastest in the United States, a study revealed. Search volumes for Bali’s neighbouring island have jumped over 40 per cent year-to-date, compared with the same period in 2011, with one in every five made by American Wego.com users.
The trend matches the tourist arrivals captured by the Department of Culture and Tourism, West Nusa Tenggara, measuring 36 per cent uplift for Lombok in the first half of 2012, compared to 2011. Total visitor numbers to Lombok from January to June 2012 almost reached 500,000. The target of the Visit Lombok Sumbawa (VLS) campaign of 1 million now appears achievable as the latter half-yearly figures tend to exceed the first.
Indonesian travellers still dominate, but international visitors outpaced the average at 47 per cent for the same period last year, confirmed by Wego’s figures. Over half of the users of Wego’s 52 country sites searching Lombok were using the local Indonesian site, wego.co.id, and the remainder consisting predominantly of travellers from Singapore, Australia and Malaysia. The highest single long-haul market however, originated from the US at an unexpected 20 per cent.
“We’re seeing a trend that both domestic travellers and international visitors are discovering new destinations in Indonesia,” explained Graham Hills, Managing Director Wego Indonesia in Jakarta. “Bali may be the most frequently searched, but Lombok is rapidly closing the gap. As more information becomes accessible online we can expect it to increase visitation even more.”
“We believe in the future that other Indonesian gems like Padang, Wakatobi or Manado will also be added as top tourist options in Indonesia, and become the focus of more frequent and intensive travel searches online,” he added.
By air
Lion Air is still the most popular carrier for travellers flying to Lombok, capturing 57 per cent share year-to-date of bookings made by Wego’s Indonesian users. One in five selected Garuda Indonesia and nearly 15 per cent chose to fly with Batavia Air with the most popular departure points remaining Jakarta and Surabaya.
International travellers too selected Lion Air with over a third choosing the carrier between January and September to get to Lombok. Nearly 29 per cent opted for Garuda Indonesia, and six per cent each selected Singapore Airlines and Batavia Air.
Interestingly following Air Asia’s launch of the direct Kuala Lumpur to Lombok service on October 12, five per cent of international flights into Lombok were booked during September with the carrier.
“The island’s increased accessibility, given the new routes, and its recently opened International airport, will only encourage more visitors and support the expansion of Lombok’s hospitality sector,” added Hills.
More hotel choices
Hotel options are also becoming more diverse with 40 new accommodation options added in 2012 now offering a total of 2,453 more rooms, resulting in the number of Lombok accommodation searches by Indonesians increasing nearly ten-fold, the majority from the capital and Surabaya.
The top five most popular hotels with Wego Indonesia users are currently:
- The Santosa Villas and Resort
- Novotel Lombok Hotel
- Bidari Hotel
- Kuta Indah Hotel
- Puri Mas Boutique Resorts & Spa
Internationally choices differ greatly on each localised Wego site and reflect the collective preferences of their individual traveller communities.
For more information, contact:
Graham Hills
Managing Director
Wego Indonesia
Tel: +62 812 8689 0676
Email: [email protected]
About Wego.com
Wego.com is APAC and MENA’s leading travel metasearch engine, operating in over 50 markets worldwide and used by millions of travellers to save time, pay less and travel more. The company provides powerful yet simple to use tools that help travellers research trips, compare prices and book travel online. Wego shows users an unbiased and channel neutral view of travel prices, providing users with a choice of booking direct with a hotel or airline, or via an OTA or aggregator site. In Q3-2012 Wego referred in excess of $1.2 Billion in potential bookings to the websites of its travel partners. Wego.com was founded in 2005 by former executives of Yahoo!, InterContinental Hotels Group, Priceline and ZUJI. Shareholders include Tiger Global Management, News Digital Media and OWW Capital Partners. For more information, please visit https://www.wego.com/about