Efforts to Digitize SMEs in the Service and Tourism Sector a la Gomodo

The services and tourism sectors have been among the hardest hit during the Covid-19 outbreak. When many tourism businesses are dealing with the famine, there is at least one new startup called Gomodo that gathers energy as a technology platform in the service and tourism sector.

Gomodo is one of 15 startups selected to participate final pitch acceleration program GK-Plug and Play sixth batch. Gomodo is a platform software-as-a-service (SaaS) which enables SMEs in the service and tourism sectors to have websites to accept online orders, cashless payments, and distribution solutions.

Touching the unreached

Founder & CEO Gomodos Lius Widjaja explained to DailySocial, The idea for this startup stemmed from his anxiety in the tourism industry. During his career in this industry, Lius assesses that travel agencies often find it difficult to obtain an inventory of products or tour packages in digital form.

This case is none other than because most of the operators providing tourism services and beg have not utilized digital services. Understandably, said Lius, the digital platform used in the service and tourism sector is complex and difficult, which is aimed at large corporate entities rather than SMEs.

"Actually there are many unique experiences that tourists can enjoy in Indonesia, for example jungle trekking, Orang Utan observation tour, exotic bird watching, even to a wild boar hunting tour? But those experiences are barely available in the catalog Online Travel Agents classmate unicorn though," said Liu.

This problem continues when Indonesia's tourism centers do not yet have many tools that support non-cash payments. Gomodo's internal survey stated that 95% of SMEs in the tourism sector do not accept payments via credit cards.

Segmentation and monetization

As stated earlier, Gomodo focuses on SMEs engaged in services and tourism. Tour operators, tour guides, travel agencies, vehicle rental companies, lodging, to tax consultants, and accountant service providers are also included.

Focus on SMEs This is what distinguishes Gomodo from global distribution system (GDS) providers such as Galileo or Saber whose products are commonly used by tourism service industry players. While Gomodo is targeting the types of tourism activities and the inventory of tour packages, Galileo and Saber are targeting the enterprise market, which generally includes airline inventory, hotels, amusement park tickets, and transportation.

"In other words, in the context of distribution, Gomodo and other GDSs function similarly, only we focus more on digitizing and collecting inventory of SME tourism packages and activities that many GDS and agents do not have," added Lius.

Gomodo does not charge a fee for SMEs to use their platform. Instead, Gomodo implemented a profit-sharing system. This means, every time there is a successful transaction on the platform, Gomodo will get paid from their partner. Lius didn't reveal how much fee they earn from each transaction.

Goals after the pandemic

Gomodo launched to the public in February 2019. Since then they have bagged 1000 SME clients throughout Indonesia. Gomodo has also been appointed by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry as a working partner for the Social Forestry 4.0 program. This program allows them to gain access to thousands of SME-class ecotourism providers throughout Indonesia to be digitally empowered.

Currently, Gomodo is actually cooperating with Coinworks to provide loan funds features to SMEs in need. However, this feature will only be rolled out in full after the pandemic ends. At the same time, Lius also expects to launch an investment feature where investors or lenders are free to invest their capital in various businesses in tourist destinations.

Regarding funding status, Gomodo has secured two rounds of funding, namely: angel round at the end of 2018 and pre seed at the end of last year. On round pre seed the names of participating investors were recorded, starting from Amand Ventures, Brama One Ventures, and Plug and Play Indonesia.

Currently Gomodo is only active in Indonesia. However, Lius did not rule out the possibility that in the next two years his party will expand abroad, such as Vietnam, which is considered to have a similar character to Indonesia.

Lius confirmed that the tourism business was in a slump. But he is optimistic that this is the right moment to push for a solution online booking and their non-cash payments to service and tourism businesses. According to him, this is necessary to prepare for a rebound in this sector when the pandemic ends.

"By using the Gomodo platform, an SME in the service and tourism sector can Go Digital in 10-15 minutes, and set-up or setting up is as easy as filling out a form or survey," said Lius.

Currently, Gomodo services can only be accessed through the website. Lius ensures that their new service can be accessed on Android and iOS in the third quarter.