BANGALORE, September 6th, 2012: The powerful link between language and travel is being explored by Asia/Pacific’s leading travel metasearch site Wego, as the company launches wego.co.in for Indians in 11 languages of the 30 it supports worldwide.
Wego India has already announced English, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali versions to serve huge communities of travellers in their preferred first or second language. Today, the company is presenting a travel comparison site in Kannada. It is a global first for the travel vertical and a huge innovation for tens of millions of travelling Kannadigas.
The investment in Kannada is explained by the online travel profile of Karnataka and particularly Bangalore. Jackson Fernandez, General Manager for Wego India explained:
“as the country’s IT hub, travellers here are very quick to embrace new technology and we have seen the same in the usage of wego.co.in. It was clear that Kannada should be a priority for Wego to reach both the business and leisure travel communities here.”
The numbers underscore the point. Domestic and international flight searches from Bangalore have multiplied 5-fold in just this last year.
68 per cent of those conducted in Bangalore are for domestic destinations reflecting its business and social connections in India and the prevalence of regional tourism. There’s a focus on neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Hotel searches dominate: 16 per cent of which are made by residents planning inbound travel for visitors to Bangalore. For outbound, Ooty is the most popular destination, followed by Goa:
Top 5 Hotel Searches by Bangalore Residents using wego.co.in
- Ooty
- Bangalore
- Goa
- Mysore
- Yercaud
For international travel, business and family links are also clear with the USA and Canada accounting for 11 per cent of flight searches, Australia at 9 per cent and UK another 6 per cent. Short-haul, cheap flights for Singapore are another 6 per cent of the total. Residents are picking properties in the top South East Asian hotspots for leisure travel.
All Wego sites rank destination and accommodation search results according to their popularity with other Wego users within the same community. Those presented in wego.co.in therefore reflect the changing interests and preferences of Indian travellers exclusively.
The Singapore-based company has sites operating in over 40 countries, but does not sell flight tickets or hotel rooms like a travel agent; instead it compares all the major online travel agents, airlines and hotel groups to help its users save time and pay less online. Users choose the products and the suppliers offering the best deals and then click through to book with them direct. The savings can be very significant.
Wego also provides an exceptionally wide choice, comparing 350,000 accommodation options and over 600 airlines including the low cost carriers. For more information, click: www.wego.co.in.
For more information, please contact:
Caroline Bye
Press Office
Wego Pte Ltd
Tel: +65 6438 8242
Email: [email protected]
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. Wego has strategic investments in HolidayIQ.com (India) and Valadoo.com (Indonesia). For more information, please visit http: https://www.wego.com/about/