In 2016, the value of TV ads spending increased by 14% or Rp134.8 trillion. Traveloka became the top third brands that spent Rp668 billion within the year.
The continuation of tax evasion story in Vietnam in which The Ministry of Finance issued official letter 848 on tax policy and tax administration operation and online booking. The ministry will implement 5% tax on sales of the online booking companies located in foreign countries like Traveloka, Agoda, and Booking.com.
Technology executives (Expedia and Amazon) stepped up their opposition to President Trump's travel ban with filing a lawsuit in federal court against Trump's administration, arguing that the order will hurt their businesses. Expedia argued that the executive order will hurt the company's ability to recruit employees from overseas as it might undermine the core of the company's business as an OTA.
By showing the Tiket.com's transaction receipt, customers with minimum purchase of Rp1,500,000 will get a free drink and beverages from Maxx Coffee in five airports, which is Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport, Kualanamu Airport in Medan, Terminal 1B and Terminal 3 Ultimate of Soekarno-Hatta International Airports and Lombok International Airports.
Go-Jek announced a new hackathon program for open source tech solutions, Go-Hackathon. The competition looks for Indonesian participants whose being able to build solutions in mobility, data engineering, and infrastructure. The company stated that Go-Hackathon will look for solutions that can be universally applied to solve problems in the tech ecosystem.
BlueBird established a partnership with Go-Jek in providing vehicle order service. In this partnership, Go-Jek users will be able to order Blue Bird taxi through the app.
Grab Indonesia has appointed Indonesia's National Police chief (ret.) Gen. Badrodin Haiti as a chief commissioner of the company, to oversee the corporate governance and long-term plans in Indonesia.
Grab Chief Executive and Co-Founder Anthony Tan said that the company is going to make a significant investment in Indonesia's future and accelerate their transition to a fully integrated digital economy by planning to invest US$700 million in Indonesia for over the next four years. The company will also allocate the funds toward building a research and development center in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Tokopedia and Yayasan Tangan Pengharapan held an educational program to educate the inmate about internet in ladies prison, Pondok Bambu.
Priceza organized the award granting ceremony for the best 21 e-Commerce companies, based on popularity of 800,000 users and their satisfaction. Many online shops won Priceza Awards 2016 included Lazada, ShopAt24,Tesco Lotus, Ookbee Mall and more.