SINGAPORE, March 7th, 2013 – Seven of Europe’s key aviation hubs have seen a dramatic rise in traffic from users of Wego’s 50 customised metasearch sites in 30 languages around the world. Travellers are comparing a wider range of travel options in the region which has seen booking volumes directed to Wego partners increase by 71 per cent in January compared to last year, despite the economic squeeze.
London, Paris and Amsterdam have each gained around 60 per cent more bookings, Zurich closer to 80 per cent. Frankfurt has doubled, beaten only slightly by Berlin which grew 111 per cent in January, against the same month in 2012. The clear leader in growth, however, was Madrid which surged ahead at 140 per cent.
Wego’s dominant role in metasearch in the Asia Pacific, and more recently the Middle East, is producing new business in volume from younger travel markets as they continue to scale: South and Southeast Asia in particular. Route expansion between the Asian hubs via the Middle East to Europe, along with low cost flight options have accelerated visitation and encouraged industry growth for both business and leisure travel, many mixing low cost connections with full service.
“With a more open-minded approach, these users are trying new and alternate brands based on price and it’s creating an expanded and increasingly competitive market online,”
explained Dean Wicks, Chief Flights Officer for Wego, currently attending ITB 2013 in Berlin.
Travellers from these regions are comparing Europe’s national carriers, Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France, KLM and connecting airlines, Etihad Airways and Emirates with regional alternatives. Examples of Wego’s recently signed partners in the region include Vueling Airlines, Czech Airlines, Air Berlin and WOW air, together with sites Opodo.de, Airtickets.com, Rumbo.pt, Barceloviajes.com, eBookers, Bravofly.fr and Voyages-SNCF.
From India, user searches directed to Europe’s seven major cities have almost doubled year on year, with the adoption of Wego India’s 11 customised national language sites making affordable travel planning easy, with price the determining factor. Thai bookings too were up by 137 per cent and Singapore, the city state, lifted 84 per cent. The emerging travel market in Indonesia is also looking to the northern hemisphere with online bookings up 37 per cent out of Jakarta.
“Metasearch has become mainstream even in emerging online markets. Indians and Indonesians have embraced Wego to plan their travel which is evident in the large volumes we’re experiencing and clearly Europe’s major hubs are included in their itinerary choices,”
Wicks added.
“Given the size of these user communities, it’s a huge opportunity.”
Growth in bookings for the 7 European Hubs by Wego user community, Jan 2013 /Jan 2012
Average across all 50 customised Wego sites: 71%
Wego India 196%
Wego Thailand 137%
Wego Singapore 84%
Wego China 62%
Wego Indonesia 37%
Wego Malaysia 33%
For media enquiries, please contact:
Caroline Bye
Press Office
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +65 6692 0868
About Wego
Wego.com is the Asia Pacific and Middle East’s leading travel metasearch engine, operating in over 50 markets worldwide and used by millions of travellers to save time, pay less and travel more. The company provides powerful yet simple to use tools that help travellers research trips, compare prices and book travel online. Wego shows users an unbiased and channel neutral view of travel prices, providing users with a choice of booking direct with a hotel or airline, or via an OTA or aggregator site. In Q3-2012 Wego referred in excess of $1.2 Billion in potential bookings to the websites of its travel partners. Wego was founded in 2005 and shareholders include Tiger Global Management and the Crescent Point Group. For more information, please visit https://www.wego.com/about.