Social media and mobile are changing customer behaviour in Indonesia and travel suppliers must be aware of these trends if they are to engage with travellers from this market of 250 million people.

Graham Hills, managing director of Wego Indonesia (right), speaking at ITB Berlin said that with Internet users reaching 25% of the population and 62% accessing the web via their phones, this would produce a marked shift in how people search, plan and book travel.

"2012 was the first year mobile usage overtook internet cafes. Feature phone usage is roughly 4 times larger than smart phones," said Hills, who spoke at the "Marketing to the new traveller" session, put together by WIT for ITB Asia at the world's largest travel trade show which took place in Berlin early March. (The WIT Conference opens ITB Asia every year in Singapore.)

"With so many young people accessing the internet and social media being one of the highest activities online, it's no surprise this is changing the way Indonesians travel," said Hills, a Bahasa-speaking Australian who set up Wego's travel search operations in Indonesia.

Social media plays a role throughout the four stages of travel, he explained.

"Picking the next holiday destination is regularly influenced by a user's social graph. Whether it's the photos users see on Facebook, Twitter and photo shares or blog posts, Indonesian travellers are learning about new destinations and making destination choices with the help of social media.

"Moving onto planning, Google is central to how users search for travel information, but they're also tweeting to ask for advice or looking up hashtags, checking local forum sites like Kaskus or reading blogs from influential travellers. When making booking decisions,  many of our users are posting to our Facebook page or mentioning us on Twitter looking for best prices. My team is standing by to answer them.

"In trip the mobile phone is always on and social media doesn't stop and for many Indonesian travellers it increases. Sharing photos is hot via Instagram and Twitter with travellers looking for instant satisfaction that their connections know they're travelling somewhere exciting. Travellers are also looking for advice in trip and Twitter plays a big part in this."

He cited a recent study by Amadeus which showed that 61% of Indonesian travellers mentioned that getting advice from their connections is the main reason they use social media during travel.  "In fact in-trip social media use is highest in Indonesia when compared to other APAC markets," said Hills.

Hills said that while demand for domestic travel is much higher than outbound currently, Wego sawan increase of 90% in searches for international destinations last year and 24% of all searches on Wego Indonesia are now outbound.

As to which destinations they are searching, the top 5 destinations on Wego were Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Seoul. "Clearly the Kpop craze and great deals are helping drive the phenomenal increase for Seoul," he said.

Asian destinations dominate with 84% of outbound searches, but growth was fastest for Europe with searches up 335% year on year, said Hills.

Hills will be speaking at WIT Indonesia during a panel featuring three other top local online travel brands  – Eric Tjetjep, CEO, Eztravel.co.id, Yusuf Ijsseldijk, CEO & Managing Director, Go Indonesiaand William Newley,CEO, Rajakamar International Group/ Rajakamar.com.

To find out more about the Indonesian travel market, sign up for WIT Indonesia.

Full programme here