H.I.S Travel Indonesia entered the Indonesian market in 2009 as the first Japanese travel agency to establish an outbound business in the country. Through his-travel.co.id, the company offered airfare, hotels, tour packages, and other travel products for customers planning trips abroad.
The business had a strong range of services, but the website had accumulated a growing amount of information. As more products and travel options were added, the digital experience became harder to navigate and more dependent on network quality.
Suitmedia partnered with H.I.S Travel between 2017 and 2018 to improve the website’s speed, reliability, and ability to engage users. The solution was to transform his-travel.co.id into a Progressive Web App—a website designed to load faster, work more reliably on weaker connections, and support re-engagement through web notifications.
The result was a more convenient travel planning experience, reflected in a 16.05% increase in pages per session within 30 days of launch.
A Wider Product Range Was Creating More Digital Friction
1. Travel had become a regular lifestyle decision
Travel was no longer viewed only as an occasional escape. In Indonesia, it was increasingly becoming part of how people spent their time, pursued experiences, and expressed their lifestyles.
That shift created a larger market for travel agencies. Customers were exploring destinations more frequently and expecting easier access to flights, hotels, tour packages, and related services.
For H.I.S Travel, this created an opportunity to serve customers across more stages of the travel journey. A visitor might begin by exploring a destination, then compare flights, review hotels, and eventually select a complete tour package.
The website needed to support this broader behavior. It had to help users discover options, compare them, and continue exploring without feeling slowed down by the volume of information.
2. More information was not automatically a better experience
His-travel.co.id provided a variety of travel products, including airfare, accommodation, tours, and other travel services.
That breadth was commercially valuable, but it also introduced complexity. As content increased, customers had more options to navigate and more pages to load before reaching the information they needed.
A website can become less useful when every new product adds another layer of navigation or data without improving the underlying structure. The problem is not simply the amount of content. It is the effort required to move through it.
H.I.S Travel needed to preserve the depth of its offering while making the experience feel faster and more manageable.
3. Speed affects trust in the travel category
Travel customers often browse with a specific objective. They may be checking a package during a short break, comparing options on a mobile device, or trying to confirm details while planning with others.
When pages load slowly or interactions feel delayed, customers may question whether the site is reliable. They may also leave before discovering the right package, especially when alternative travel websites are only a click away.
Speed was therefore not merely a technical performance measure. It influenced whether customers could remain engaged long enough to understand the offer.
The website needed to respond quickly while still presenting enough information to support meaningful travel decisions.
4. Network conditions could interrupt the customer journey
Not every user accessed the website through a fast or stable connection. Customers might browse while traveling, use mobile data, or rely on networks with inconsistent performance.
A website that worked well only under ideal conditions could exclude users at the exact moments when they were most likely to need travel information.
H.I.S Travel needed a more resilient digital experience—one that could remain useful even when connection quality was limited.
This was especially important for a travel business. Customers often research trips from different places and devices, so the platform had to adapt to real-world browsing conditions rather than assume perfect connectivity.
5. The business needed a way to stay connected after the first visit
A customer may visit a travel website before they are ready to book. They may be comparing destinations, waiting for the right offer, or planning around a future date.
If the website had no way to re-engage that user, H.I.S Travel would need to rely on the customer remembering the brand and returning independently.
The website needed to support a more continuous relationship. Timely updates and relevant content could give customers a reason to come back when a travel decision became more immediate.
The challenge was therefore twofold: improve the quality of the first visit and create a better path for future engagement.
Building Reliability Into the Travel Planning Experience
1. We focused on the conditions that make a website useful
Suitmedia and H.I.S Travel began with a practical understanding of travel website performance. A good experience depends on more than visual design or the number of packages available.
Users need pages to load quickly, interactions to respond immediately, and information to remain accessible when network conditions are imperfect.
These requirements shaped the decision to transform his-travel.co.id into a Progressive Web App, or PWA. The approach allowed the website to retain the accessibility of the web while adopting capabilities commonly associated with mobile applications.
The purpose was not to build a separate application for its own sake. It was to improve the existing customer journey without requiring users to find, download, and maintain another app.
2. We used PWA technology to reduce the cost of access
A Progressive Web App can be accessed through a browser while also offering an experience that can behave more like an installed application.
This reduced the barrier between discovering H.I.S Travel and using its digital service. Customers did not need to visit an app store before they could explore travel products.
The website could also be installed on a user’s home screen, making it easier to return to later. This was useful for travel planning, which may involve several visits rather than one immediate transaction.
The decision supported both acquisition and retention. New users could enter through the open web, while returning users could access the platform more directly.
3. We designed for lower data use and faster loading
The new experience was designed to load more quickly and consume fewer data resources.
This mattered because travel websites often contain rich content, including destination imagery, package details, and multiple product categories. If every page required excessive data, users on mobile connections could experience delays or abandon the journey.
Reducing data demands helped make the site more practical in everyday conditions. Users could access information with less waiting, while the platform remained responsive across a wider range of connections.
The business reason was clear: a faster website gives customers more opportunity to browse, compare, and continue toward a travel decision.
4. We made responsiveness part of customer experience
The PWA approach supported quick responses to user interactions and smoother transitions between actions.
This improved the feel of the platform. Customers could move through travel information with less interruption and greater confidence that the website had registered their actions.
Smooth interaction is particularly important when users are comparing options. A delayed response can make a customer unsure whether a selection worked, whether a page is loading, or whether they should try again.
By making interactions feel more immediate, the website reduced uncertainty and helped users remain focused on their travel plans.
5. We treated network resilience as a business requirement
The website was designed to function more reliably under varying network conditions.
This did not mean eliminating every limitation associated with connectivity. It meant creating a platform that could continue to provide a useful experience when users were not connected to an ideal network.
For H.I.S Travel, this expanded the practical reach of the website. Customers could engage with the brand in more situations, including while using slower mobile connections or browsing away from a fixed high-speed network.
The second-order effect was greater confidence in the platform. A website that remains dependable under ordinary constraints is more likely to be revisited.
6. We created an app-like experience without requiring an app-store journey
A traditional mobile application can offer strong access and re-engagement, but it also requires users to find it in an app store, download it, install it, and keep it updated.
The PWA provided many of the practical advantages of an application while keeping the initial access path simple. Users could discover H.I.S Travel through the web and still add the experience to their home screen.
This removed a significant adoption barrier. Customers did not have to make a separate decision to download an application before they could evaluate the value of the service.
For a travel brand serving users at different levels of intent, this flexibility was important. Casual browsers and committed customers could use the same platform in different ways.
7. We used notifications to support timely re-engagement
The PWA also enabled web push notifications.
This gave H.I.S Travel a way to re-engage users with timely updates and relevant content after their initial visit. A customer who had browsed travel products could receive information that encouraged them to return when a related offer or update became available.
The key was relevance. Notifications are useful when they connect to a customer’s interests and timing. Irrelevant messages can quickly become an interruption and weaken trust.
Used appropriately, push notifications helped extend the customer journey beyond the first session and gave H.I.S Travel a more direct way to maintain contact.
8. We preserved the brand while improving the underlying system
The transformation focused on how the website worked, not only how it looked.
This distinction mattered because performance improvements should strengthen the brand experience rather than replace it. H.I.S Travel still needed to communicate as a credible Japanese travel agency with a broad range of outbound travel products.
The updated platform supported that proposition by making the company’s content easier to access and explore. The technology served the customer-facing promise: travel planning should feel more convenient, reliable, and manageable.
A More Engaging Website Produced More Meaningful Visits
1. Users explored more content per session
Within 30 days of launching the new website, pages per session increased by 16.05%.
This result indicates that users were viewing more pages during each visit. While the metric does not independently explain every reason for the increase, it provides evidence that the improved experience encouraged deeper exploration.
In a travel context, deeper exploration is meaningful. Customers may be comparing destinations, reviewing package details, examining hotel options, or moving between travel products before deciding what suits them.
A more reliable and responsive platform gave users a better chance to complete that exploration.
2. The website became easier to use under real-world conditions
The PWA transformation improved the site’s ability to serve users across different connection qualities and devices.
This expanded the situations in which customers could access H.I.S Travel’s products. They were less dependent on high-speed connections or a desktop computer to browse travel information.
The improvement was especially relevant for a business whose customers may plan trips while commuting, traveling, or using mobile data.
Greater access supported a more continuous relationship between users and the brand.
3. The platform created a clearer path for repeat engagement
The ability to install the website on a home screen and receive web push notifications gave H.I.S Travel new ways to remain connected with users.
This was important because travel decisions often develop over time. A user may discover a destination today, compare packages later, and make a booking after coordinating dates and budgets.
The platform could now support more of that journey instead of treating each website visit as an isolated event.
4. H.I.S Travel reduced the gap between web and mobile behavior
The website retained the reach and discoverability of a browser-based platform while offering selected behaviors associated with mobile applications.
This created a more flexible digital experience. Users could arrive through search, explore through a browser, install the site if they found it useful, and return through a more direct access point.
The approach reduced the need to force every user into the same path. The platform could adapt to different levels of interest and commitment.
5. Performance became part of the company’s competitive position
Travel agencies often compete through destinations, packages, price, and service. The quality of the digital experience can also influence whether customers stay long enough to evaluate those advantages.
By improving speed, resilience, and re-engagement, H.I.S Travel strengthened the platform through which its commercial offer was experienced.
The second-order benefit was that product improvements could become more visible. A compelling package is easier to evaluate when customers can reach its information quickly and move through the website without friction.
What the H.I.S Travel Project Reveals About Digital Transformation
1. Transformation should solve a customer problem, not showcase technology
The decision to adopt PWA technology was valuable because it addressed clear user needs: faster access, lower data use, better reliability, and easier return visits.
Technology was not the objective. It was the means of improving the travel planning experience.
This is a useful standard for digital transformation. The strongest technology decisions are those customers can feel through greater speed, clarity, and convenience—even if they never know which technology made it possible.
2. Performance is part of customer trust
Customers often interpret slow or unreliable digital experiences as signals about the business behind them.
A travel site that loads quickly and responds consistently suggests that the company is organized and dependable. A site that fails under ordinary conditions can create doubt before customers evaluate the actual travel offering.
Performance should therefore be managed as part of brand experience, not only as an engineering metric.
3. The web can provide application-like value without application-level friction
Many businesses assume they must build a native mobile application to create a strong mobile experience.
A PWA can offer an alternative when the business needs discoverability, easy access, installability, and re-engagement without requiring users to pass through an app store.
The right choice depends on the customer journey and business requirements. The broader lesson is to choose the delivery model that removes the most friction for the intended audience.
4. Re-engagement must be earned through relevance
Push notifications can help bring users back, but they are effective only when the content reflects a genuine interest or need.
H.I.S Travel’s ability to send timely and relevant updates created a path for continued engagement. The feature should be governed carefully so that customers receive value rather than interruption.
5. Deeper engagement is a useful early sign of experience improvement
The 16.05% increase in pages per session within 30 days provided an early indication that users were exploring more of the website.
This type of measure does not replace booking or revenue data, but it helps show whether the platform is becoming more useful. Deeper engagement can be an important leading signal when a business is improving the experience that precedes conversion.
Strategic Insights for the C-Suite
- Fund technology when customers can feel the improvement.
Digital transformation should be tied to visible gains in speed, reliability, access, or convenience. Technology matters because it changes the customer experience, not because it is new. - Treat performance as part of brand trust.
Slow and unreliable platforms weaken confidence before customers evaluate the core offer. Website speed, network resilience, and responsive interactions belong in the customer experience agenda. - Remove adoption barriers between discovery and repeat use.
A web experience can be powerful when customers can find it easily, use it immediately, install it if useful, and return without unnecessary steps. Do not force every customer into an app-store download journey. - Build re-engagement around customer relevance.
Notifications and direct updates should help users at the right moment. Their value depends on timing and usefulness, not simply on the ability to send more messages.
