Wego launched its Taiwan website in May 2013, since then its booking revenue has been growing at 20% every month.
The Singapore-based company has taken a localisation approach for its Taiwan service, it has also appointed a dedicated market manager to continue to drive the business forward.
James Huang will oversee Wego’s Taiwan and Hong Kong markets, and the company will be introducing a market manager solely to manage China towards the end of October.
Joachim Holte, chief marketing officer for Wego says:
“Based on the market strength and impressive response to Wego in Taiwan, we recognised the importance of having a local professional with a solid understanding of Taiwanese travellers and local travel suppliers."
In June 2013, Wego raised $17 million in its Series C investment round, taking the total investment to $36 million. Wego had said that it will use the fund to expand its market presence.
- Top five flight searches at Wego Taiwan site: Japan, China, South Korea, United States, Australia
- Top 5 accommodation searches (international): Shanghai, Osaka, Busan, Singapore, Seoul
- Top 5 accommodation searches (domestic): Taipei, Kaohsiung, Nantou, Pingtung, Hualien
Tnooz spoke to Holte regarding Wego Taiwan.
What kind of effort around localisation has gone into the Wego Taiwan website?
Wego has worked on the basis that individual countries and markets have their own individual needs and tastes; first and foremost from a local language point of view and also from a market management approach.
Wego has successfully built relationships with Taiwan travel suppliers including airlines, hotels and other travel related activity, and combined the strength of our global network of industry partnerships to provide the traveller with both a local and international choice of travel options.
In that sense, Wego is becoming more connected with travellers all around the world by providing them with choices that make sense to their location, as well as showing them what's popular with other travellers in their own region.
www.wego.tw is displayed in Chinese, featuring flights and hotels most popular with Taiwanese travellers on the home page, in the local currency so there's no need to mess around with conversions. There's much more to localising a site than simply translating it.
As mentioned apart from the local travel offerings, the site is designed to suit offerings that a Taiwanese traveller is most interested in. Also we've just developed a brand new logo especially for Wego Taiwan, the English translation of it is "Travel with Me", which will make a better connection with Taiwan market.
How is the customer behaviour in Wego Taiwan website different from other Wego sites?
The Taiwanese are definitely more budget oriented than say, the Mainland Chinese who seek unique luxury holiday experiences. Their top choice of destinations remain Southeast Asia and Wego's extensive partnerships with LCCs across this region perfectly aligns to suit their travel preferences, as well as budget.
Will you be building a development/technology team in Taiwan?
We've spent a great deal of time this year improving our product and building a larger and very technologically focussed team based at Wego Headquarters in Singapore.
Our entire global network is, and will benefit from the extensive effort as a result. We're also placing additional dedicated developers based in Singapore to further address the nuances of localisation by market.
These developers will work with each of our market managers to improve local user experiences.
NB: Taiwan image via Shutterstock.