He said, “My biggest fear is that in the rush towards the exuberant expectation that Asia’s time has finally come, we will fall victim to the biggest reason for failure in the history of the world: simple hubris.”
His premise is that while Asia was getting some things right, there were others that needed correction – “ethical wealth creation”, for one, to bridge the divide between rich and poor. “Asia requires profoundly different and diverse, innovative thought leadership if its economic rise is to result in a sustainable, new paradigm for cilvilisational progress,” he wrote.
“In particular, Asia needs to inculcate a virtuous cycle whereby business, political and social leaders all interact to create new norms of economic, social and political behaviour as well as values. Simply following what used to work in the West is no roadmap for future success.”
His words resonated because I had just spent 24 hours in Jakarta, caught up in the euphoria of business leaders who are dreaming and scheming of a brand new tomorrow for their businesses.
After China and India, Indonesia’s the most-watched market right now, particularly in the online and ecommerce sector. Smartphone penetration is high among urban folk. They have skipped PC and gone straight to mobile – scenes depicted in this photo (left) are typical where the mobile holds more attraction than the person you are with.
The country is at tipping point for an affluent middle class to emerge, people tell me. Given Indonesia’s population, they say that makes up nearly 20 million addressable consumers with travel increasingly an aspiration and necessity.
Credit card penetration is low but consumers are used to making payments via ATM and bank transfers through their mobile. Solutions providers are working on payment gateways that will eventually solve the payment problem.
The online travel market remains wide open for someone to triumph and dominate.
Foreign brands such as booking.com and Agoda are strong on predominantly Bali hotel bookings but this country, as we know, is more than just Bali.
RajaKamar, the hotel portal, set up by three competitors-turned-collaborators is making a serious play for the domestic hotel market. The Panorama, Smailing and Dwidaya combo cannot be underestimated in their control and influence over the Indonesian travel market, with their interests across multi-sectors of the industry.
The opportunity and big problem to solve is flights with more airlines coming into play. Lion Air’s record US$22.4 billion order with Boeing this February made everyone sit up. That’s 230 airplanes, including 201 737 MAXs and 29 next-generation 737-900 ERs – obviously they are expecting massive growth.
Singapore-based Tiger Airways bought a 33% stake in the beleaguered Mandala Airlines and the restructured carrier will adopt the Tiger Airways business model, and plans to offer low fare travel to international and domestic Indonesian destinations located within a 5-hour flying radius.
Wego, the Singapore-based meta-search, is taking a stab at solving the pain of flight search and has launched a local language siteand beefed up resources in Jakarta and plans to use this as a hub to recruit developers and pilot projects.
Flocations, the search site that pitched during the WIT Start-Up Gallery last year, is also making a play for Indonesia with funding from JFDI Asia.
The one to watch is a new local flight start-up is www.ezytravel.co.id, set up by Dwidaya, one of the big three travel families in the RajaKamar venture.
Valadoo.com is making a play for the hotel+activities space, focused on the domestic market for now.
Investors are flocking in to assess opportunities. There is certainly no lack of interest or funding.
Those that have observed the Indonesian online travel market say it is most similar to India in terms of its characteristics and you can therefore bet that India’s MakeMyTrip, which is expanding in South-east Asia, will not be left out of the race to tap this next big market which everyone says is at inflexion point to take off.
You can feel it in the shopping malls. Big brands everywhere. Crowded restaurants and cafes. Hot dining spots are packed. I felt like I had just walked out from one shopping mall in Singapore to another.
I left for the airport therefore in appropriately high spirits. And then came the messages – earthquake in Aceh, tsunami warning, panic across the region. Friends from Phuket, Penang and Sri Lanka messaged me, asking if I was safe in Jakarta.
As big as the earthquake was on the Richter scale, it didn’t do too much damage, thank goodness. But it served as a warning and reality check – that just when you think everything’s hunky dory, you get a reminder that we live in a world where anything can still happen, and does and we shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves.
Hubris has no place in today’s world of constant shocks.
