StayAltered has unveiled the latest version for its community-powered hospitality platform, with new booking and rewards features, partner services, and member benefits for independent hoteliers and sustainable travellers.
Contributing to this new version are over 80 independent hoteliers who joined forces with a founding network of contributors and partners, including COAX Software in Ukraine, GuestRevu in the UK, and Weeva in South Africa.
StayAltered combines the power of a global hospitality brand with the reach of a travel booking website, and helps sustainable travellers easily find, book, and earn rewards with independent hoteliers.
In the coming months, StayAltered will announce enhanced membership benefits for StayAltered guests with the launch of Special Guests and Super Guests plans, as well as more cooperative solutions and partner services for StayAltered hosts.
“StayAltered champions independent hoteliers, who represent over two-thirds of the global hospitality industry,” said Evan Tzeng, founder of StayAltered. “When locally-operated and sustainably-managed, their accommodations become sociocultural anchors and economic drivers for communities to thrive and flourish.”
“We believe in harnessing collective power to make tourism more purposeful and impactful. StayAltered provides us a platform to realise this vision collaboratively,” added Arunavh Dam, StayAltered host and co-founder of Muhaan Collective, a social enterprise in India developing experiential tourism and hospitality models with rural communities.
Indonesian minister of tourism and creative economy, Sandiaga Uno, has underlined the importance of the tourism industry in the country’s pursuit of economic growth at the International Tourism Investment Forum (ITIF) 2024 held in Jakarta on June 5 and 6, while noting strong performance in 2023.
Despite 2023 international arrival numbers falling short of pre-pandemic levels, reaching 11.7 million visitors and 35 per cent down from before, tourism revenue surpassed targets by 40 to 45 per cent.
Sandiaga expressed confidence in the country’s tourism performance, judging from its latest ranking on the 2024 edition of World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Development Index – up 10 spots from 32nd to 22nd place. The ranking takes into account the implementation of quality and sustainable tourism, and its stronger position on the index has earned Indonesia international recognition, opined Sandiaga.
He was addressing investors, financial institutions and travel-related businesspeople at the Invest in Wonderful Indonesia Roundtable Discussion, held during ITIF 2024, which was organised by the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy and supported by UN Tourism.
“We are confident that the key is to increase investment, and we need more investment in the tourism sector,” stated Sandiaga.
To entice investors, Sandiaga said Indonesia would continue to offer various tourism conveniences, such as visa-on-arrival and smart gate systems in immigration areas, as well as introduce Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and the five super-priority tourism destinations comprising Mandalika-Nusa Tenggara Barat, Lake Toba-North Sumatra, Likupang-North Sulawesi, Labuan Bajo-Nusa Tenggara Timur, and Borobudur-Central Java.
In response, Natalia Bayona, executive director of UN Tourism, urged for greater collaboration between the government and the private sector to better face global geopolitical factors, which could affect the investment climate.
She stressed: “We need more professionals’ presence, more reliable talents; we need to create more job opportunities. Therefore, investing in people is crucial to creating sustainable jobs that we can support.”
Commenting on human resource investment, Sachin Gopalan, CEO of IndoFringe, said youth programmes were needed to groom future leaders, who are all currently students, to carry on Indonesia’s Emas 2045 vision and India’s Viksit Bharat@2047 vision.
By connecting the youths of Indonesia and India, they can brainstorm and develop the future creative economy together, he opined.
In support of talent development, Indian ambassador for Indonesia and Timor-Leste, Sandeep Chacravorty, said both Indonesian undergraduates and postgraduates now have the chance to study abroad under its education programme.
Besides focus on human capital, UN Tourism’s Bayona said the industry also needed to develop start-ups and strengthen local SMEs so that they “become the backbone of the tourism sector”.
Several additional suggestions were put forth by other panellists, such as the privatisation of airports and seaports; the need for more attractions in tourist destinations to provide better visitor experiences; as well as the development of golf tourism.
Dharma Mangkuluhur, commissioner of Intra Golflink, opined: “Golf tourism is a sector that Indonesia should focus on. Our golf courses need upgrading (to meet the standards of neighbouring countries). There are 250,000 travellers coming to Indonesia (a year) for golfing while Thailand receives six million. This market is big and Indonesia should (tap it).”