Umrah Trip Temporarily Stops, Goes Umrah Makes Business Adjustments

Due to the spread of Covid-19, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has decided to temporarily close umrah activities from outside Saudi Arabia since February 27, 2020. This condition has a direct impact on a number of Umrah travel agents, including Going for Umrah. To maintain the business, a number of plans have been prepared.

Co-founder and CEO Going Umrah Faried Ismunandar share stories with DailySocial about this condition. According to him, this condition is present in the midst of the Umrah travel industry which is in a significant growth trend. Since 2018, Indonesian Umrah pilgrims are said to have reached 1 million each year. This includes purchases through digital platforms such as GoUmroh.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, growth continued. Even until January 2020 purchases reached record highs. But unfortunately, after that the buying stopped completely.

"The industry as a whole is also experiencing a shock, maybe not all of it travel agents Umrah can last. One thing we are still grateful for is cancellation rate at GoUmroh itself you can still say manageable, only about 30% do cancel and the rest still agree to reschedule. This indicates that consumers who have prepared themselves for Umrah still have the desire to continue performing Umrah even though it has to be delayed," explained Faried.

Anticipating the changes that hit the industry, the GoUmroh party did not remain silent. Several steps were taken, starting with ensuring that all consumers had sufficient information and processing consumer desires.

"In business terms, issue mainly is playing revenue sources we still have no indication of when else we can get. So what we have to do is revisitThe roadmap us, and the result is that we are attractive project which we plan to do in 2021 – namely E-commerce Muslim – to now, because from our analysis this is one of the most feasible to move the company," said Faried.

Industry changes and a number of new services

The pandemic has been going on for more than half a year. There is no sign of a decrease in the number of transmissions in Indonesia. Of course this results in the uncertainty of the Umrah industry. After all, if one day the Umrah trip is opened, there will be many adjustments, such as general restrictions, quotas in one group, and the like. This condition will have an impact on increasing the cost of Umrah.

Realizing that the condition doesn't seem to be getting better soon, Go for Umrah moves quickly to try two things, first look for revenue streams quickly, both amplify the features and services on the platform. So that when the time comes, Umrah has been opened, the user experience and journey is expected to be even better.

"For revenue streamm new we launched Go shopping, reward platform for Muslim shoppers. This is cashback shopping platform with the first Muslim product and consumer target. Every purchase at brand partners through GoBelanja, consumers will definitely get a 'profit sharing' that is immediately obtained and can then be disbursed to a bank account, digital money, or credit. We work not only with big brands but also sellers of goods and services who have been optimizing through their social media. The hope is that other than consumers can benefits which is more, businesses We are also helped in sales," explained Faried.

As for improving features and services, this includes products (halal travel), payment methods, and plans such as savings, how to order, sales channels to the number of partners who join. According to Faried, not all of the above features have been launched. There are some that are still in progress. Not only that, GoUmroh also has a number of plans for funding.

"So after last year we entered in Grab Velocity Ventures, this year, GoUmroh is also included in the accelerated program by Telkom through Indigo Creative Nation. We are preparing to do raise funds too, soon," said Faried.