Dubai, May 6, 2014 – Wego, the leading travel metasearch site in the Middle East and Asia Pacific announced today their partnership with Saudi Airlines; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s leading full service carrier.
Speaking from the region’s premiere travel industry event at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai, Chief Flights Officer, Dean Wicks shared the news which he said ‘reinforced Wego’s continuing strength and growth in the Middle East’.
“We are so thrilled to partner with such an established and well respected airline and share their products through Wego’s inventory with travellers right around the world,” commented Wicks. “Saudi Airlines continues to expand in an exciting travel market that has enjoyed exponential growth, and only continues to escalate.”
Saudi Airlines, operating as Saudia, is the full-service national carrier of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The airlines flies to 118 destinations globally, with a fleet of 153 aircraft, and additional aircraft orders for 2015.
Hazem SONBUL, GM eCommerce Saudia Airlines said, “With Wego’s vast reach and dominance as a travel search engine in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, it was a natural strategic move to partner with Wego, this will increase our brand exposure in Asia Pacific markets. We have invested on online channels to provide customers with the best travel experience to build their travel itinerary with access to an extensive global network on Saudia and its global partners.”
“Middle Eastern travellers have come a long way in the past few years,” added Wicks. “Their confidence and appreciation of Wego’s simple to use travel search has left us in no doubt that this market has undergone a complete online travel evolution. With Wego’s incorporation of this well known Middle Eastern airline, who continues to build on their own product, we expect travel throughout the region to further intensify.”
“The online travel business is crucial to helping industry providers extend into new markets in what’s become a very fast paced and competitive business,” Wicks continued. “Wego’s metasearch platform has the ability to reach millions of travellers everywhere and has become a valuable asset to our partners here in the Middle East and around the world.”
Visitor flows from the Middle East and Africa will grow at an annual rate of 11.9 percent over the next ten years, a few points above the 8.4 percent growth registered over the previous ten-year period, according to a report from Amadeus. The same report cites the Middle East as ‘winning the race’ in the competition for long-haul transfer passenger traffic.
Wego’s iOS travel search app, which launched just over a month ago, is now ranked as the top free travel app in Saudi Arabia by Apple’s app store.
“Our investment in offering the world’s first travel search app in Arabic, with right-to-left language support, has been a resounding success. We are also the first travel metasearch site to feature Saudi Airlines as an airline partner in Arabic,” added Wicks.
Wego’s travel app is available in 20 languages globally, in both iOS and android. Wego, as the first comprehensive and fully Arabised travel metasearch site launched in the Middle East in 2012, is available at www.wego.ae.
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Note to media: Dean Wicks, Chief Flights Officer for Wego, is attending the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai, and is available for media.
For press enquiries and personal interview requests, please contact:
Anita Duffin
Press Office, Singapore
Wego Pte Limited
[email protected]
About Wego
Wego.com is the leading travel search engine across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East and is used by millions of travellers each month to save time, pay less and travel more. The company provides powerful yet simple to use tools that help travellers research trips, compare prices for flights and hotels across multiple websites, and to book travel online. Wego shows users an unbiased and channel neutral view of travel prices, providing a choice of booking direct with a hotel or airline, or via an online travel agent or aggregator. For more information, visit https://www.wego.com/about.