And social – a lot had to do with trip planning using the power of the crowd. I am not sure how the social piece will play out in terms of travel recommendations – I think there are just too many of those around – and frankly, I think we’ve moved into a world of over-recommendations. I don’t know about you but it only confuses me more when there are lots of people telling me lots of different things – I’d rather just hear it from one or two people I trust.

But it’s the mobile piece I want to focus on because I find myself having conversations these days that are déjà vu circa 1995 when the Internet revolution was just beginning. At that time, I was editing a travel trade newspaper and we were building the website and I recall questions being asked such as, what is the return on investment and people were just measuring its value in terms of direct returns, ie bookings or, in the case of media, advertising spend.

Yet if you look at what the web has created, it’s a whole new eco-system and marketplace of its own – and bookings or advertising spend are only a part of it.  And it was the pure Internet plays, unencumbered by legacy thinking, that achieved cut-through.

The same will happen with mobile. New players, free of legacy thinking, will come up with pure mobile plays that will leave incumbents who continue to link it with direct ROI in their wake. We’ve already seen it happen with a few pure mobile plays – but as the mobile revolution takes hold and sweeps through Asia, be prepared for more to come.

The winner of the Indonesia competition was Bellhop, “your personal concierge service at your fingertips in any hotel, in any city around the world”. (Picture shows CEO Payam Safa with his award)

The judges liked the simplicity of the promise.  According to the pitch, “The system will automatically check every guest in to a room on the day of their arrival, and send a notification directly to the guest’s smartphone. The app also automates and mobilizes other core aspects of a typical hotel stay – check-out, dining, real-time concierge, room requests, hotel directory, personalized offers from merchants and even in-room controls. 

“By engaging a customer throughout their stay, guests’ preferences can be stored and big-data analytics utilized to develop real customer insights driving a more memorable experience the next time around.”

Judges called it “unique and innovative” and said that while it was a common model in the US, it was still new to Asia.

CEO Payam Safa, ex-Accenture, is a director at Batiqa Hotels, which is launching 40 hotels in five years throughout Indonesia. He told judges he’s secured Batiqa as a client and a second hotel group with six locations to launch Bellhop. The two other co-founders are Sean Liao, CTO, who was CTO of Rocket Internet as well as co-founder, Qraved, and Huiting Koh, CMO, who was brand manager for Unilever and worked with Goldman Sachs.

BellHop plans to monetize with a model similar to OpenTable:

1. Transaction fees on bookings
2. One-time setup fee and monthly subscription fee from each hotel
3. Promotional transaction fees from merchants

Special mention was given to TripTrus (pronounced terus, meaning straight in Indonesian), playing in the adventure and activities space and what the judges liked about this model was the way it blended offline activities (such as having an Indie Travel Mart) to acquire customers as well as online marketing. They also liked it because it was “straightforward, innovative and localized”.

TripTrus, launched July 1, 2013, has a big market to play in. There were 245 million domestic tourists in Indonesia in 2012 and TripTrus is targetting them as well as foreign travellers (9.2 million expected in 2014) who long to do more than just Bali or Lombok.

An online platform designed to meet the need of travelers and independent tourism service vendors (Trip Operators) and promote adventure tourism in Indonesia, it helps travelers choose reasonably priced trip package(s) suitable to their time allocation, destinations and activities interests.

It also provides a Customer Relation Management (CRM) tool that enables Trip Operators to easily manage their packages with features such as online registration, emailing nvoices, installment plan, participants’ database and more. 

It was founded by Brahmantya Sakti (presenting), Donna Iwan Setiawan, Hari Hoedojo and Della Walasary, a group of travel and outdoor activities enthusiasts and experienced professionals – with each more than 13 years’ experience in the field of ICT business, Programming, Design & Digital Media, Marketing & Promotion and the Music Industry.

Fritz Demopolous, CEO of Queen’s Road Capital (first in row), who was chair of the judging panel, said it was good to see local entrepreneurs across Asia take to the stage to pitch their ideas. “It’s not easy in a second language and we all need to grow the travel start-up community and encourage locals to be part of it.”

There is no doubt Indonesia is the land of entrepreneurs. With a population of 240 million and a very uneven economy, youths need to fend for themselves when they graduate – no big institutions guaranteeing jobs unlike in Singapore and so they are used to being enterprising, fighting for their space, failing and getting up again.

Congratulations to Bellhop and TripTrus and thank you to Logbook, Openstrip, Insanwisata and Opentrip for taking part in our competition.