NusaTrip Opens Office in Vietnam to Continue Regional Expansion

Startup OTA NusaTrip today (8/3) announced the opening of a regional office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which is also the third city outside Jakarta, after opening offices in Singapore and Manila. This regional office will focus on creating strategic sales initiatives and working with the tourism ecosystem in the country.

After the Covid-19 pandemic showed recovery, Vietnam reopened pintu for international tourists in March 2022. Since then, Vietnam's domestic tourism industry has experienced strong growth and has attracted more than four million foreign tourists.

Based on ASEANFocus data, Vietnam is targeting the arrival of 16 million foreign tourists and 80 million domestic tourists, as well as revenue of $34 billion in 2024-2026. In addition, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) also hopes that the tourism industry can fully recover in December 2023, tripling in terms of travel volume from 2022 with an estimated 34 million Vietnamese tourists who will travel abroad by plane.

In an official statement, NusaTrip CEO Johanes Chang said that opening an office in Vietnam is a form of commitment to providing the best travel experience to more customers in a region that has one of the fastest growth in Southeast Asia.

"NusaTrip will try to improve services and continue to innovate to meet changes in customer behavior. Apart from that, taking into account the strength of market potential, NusaTrip also plans to open offices in other Southeast Asia regions to provide personal service and become one-stop booking experience for all our customers," said Joe, Johanes' nickname.

Society Pass Vietnam Country Manager Ngo Thi Cham added, "[..] Along with the momentum of the trend'revenge travel' which is very valuable, we are ready to meet the high demand from consumers, especially those who want to visit more than 3.000 beautiful islands in Vietnam. Southeast Asia is an important growth engine for NusaTrip. "As the tourism industry recovers, we are also optimistic about the market potential in Vietnam."

SoPa Development

Society Pass acquired NusaTrip in August 2022. This agreement begins SoPa's entry into the Indonesian market, in line with its business strategy of uniting and developing a digital-based company ecosystem throughout the markets of Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

SoPa itself already has offices in many locations, such as Los Angeles, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, Manila and Singapore. As an acquisition-based holding company, SoPa operates six business verticals related to loyalty, digital media, travel, telecommunications, lifestyle and F&B.

One of the innovations that is being prepared is loyalty points or Society Points. Later, SoPa users can earn and exchange their Society Points, and receive personalized promotions based on SoPa's data capabilities and understanding of consumer shopping behavior. This newest feature has entered beta testing and is expected to launch widely early this year.

It is claimed that SoPa has gathered more than 3,3 million registered consumers and more than 205 thousand registered traders and brands. The company has invested more than two years building a proprietary IT architecture to effectively scale and support consumer, merchant and acquisition processes.