- Filipino ‘Early Adopters’ using technology to find the best travel deals online
- Over half the demographic now enjoying 4 and 5-star accommodation
- 197% lift in domestic flight searches and 132% in international year-to-date
- More varied domestic travel profile, beyond Manila, Baguio, Boracay and Cebu
Manila, April 24th, 2012 – Where Filipino travellers have traditionally searched across many different travel sites to compare prices, a growing community are harnessing Wego’s latest metasearch technology to surface the best deals, using savings on real-time airfares to buy better hotel rooms.
With twice the number of ‘early adopters’ of the typical internet profile in the Philippines, the tech-savy group using wego.com.ph which displays the best options on a single screen, are travelling more frequently and in more comfort according to a usage study by Wego and demographic analysis from Effective Measure. Wego has seen users move up from tourist class accommodation to 3-star mid-range hotels, which have increased from 24 to 27 per cent of searches; to 4-star rising from 26 to 31 per cent and 5-star from 16 to 20 per cent, just over the course of 2011.
Wego is hugely encouraged by the findings because it demonstrates the tangible value
attached to shopping online for travel intelligently, using a neutral comparison site displaying available airfares and live hotel inventory.
“What you see on wego.com.ph is also real. We include the fees with the low cost fares as well as the details of what you get with your room rate,”
commented Wego’s Chief Commercial Officer, Craig Hewett.
“This way you can select your booking partners carefully from our partner airline sites, online travel agents and hotels. wego.com.ph is delivering on its promise to help travellers save time, pay less and travel more.”
The result for Wego has been a spectacular jump in traffic year-to-date: a 197 per cent
increase in domestic flight searches, which make up 42 per cent of the total and 132 per cent increase in international airfare searches.
Hewett credits women in the Philippines for much of the growth as they now represent
almost 58 per cent of users, compared to a market average of just 48 per cent.
Top ranked destinations searched on wego.com.ph
Domestic
- Baguio
- Manila
- Boracay
- Cebu
- Tagaytay
- Davao
- Palawan
- Subic Bay
- Puerto Galera
- Batangas
International
- Singapore
- Hong Kong
- Macau
- Malaysia
- Thailand
- China
- Taiwan
- USA
- Indonesia
- Japan
Domestically, there are many more searches in the secondary cities and less concentration on Manila, Baguio, Boracay and Cebu. Travellers are looking across the entire domestic route network. Internationally, the focus is shifting more towards Australia (up 164 per cent), the USA (up 145 per cent), Macau (up 172 per cent), with searches doubling for Hong Kong and South Korea increasing four fold.
Wego.com.ph aggregates flight and hotel content from over 500 airlines, 350,000 accommodation options and 150 different travel suppliers to allow the user to search and compare instantly on the one screen all available travel options, linked directly to supplier sites for transaction completion.
Wego recently launched the site in the Philippines in response to demand for a localised version from Filipino users at home and many abroad using wego.com.
For more information, please contact:
Caroline Bye
Press Office
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +65 6438 8242
About Wego
Considered the ideal site to begin planning travel, Wego.com gives travellers a complete view of available flights, hotels, travel packages and deals from hundreds of travel websites in the time that it takes to search just one. The latest pricing, availability and reviews are shown, with tools provided to select the cheapest days to fly and to find the best hotel offers. Travellers then simply click through to the partner websites to book. Wego.com was founded in 2005 by former executives of Intercontinental Hotels Group, Yahoo!, Priceline and ZUJI. Investors include News Digital Media and Tiger Global. In 2010, Wego merged with HolidayIQ.com, an established India based travel content and community site. For more information, please visit http: www.wego.com/about
About Effective Measure
Effective Measure is the leading provider of digital media planning solutions in the emerging markets, bringing best practice online measurement data to premium publishers, platforms, agencies and advertisers. Our products and services offer media planners invested in Oceania, South East Asia, Middle East North Africa and South Africa, a clear insight into the state of the Internet and the ever-growing digital population.