Since its founding in 2005, Singapore-based Wego has evolved
its strategies to capture both shifts in consumer preferences and shifts in destination
dynamics.
The company started as a Southeast Asia-focused traditional flight and hotel metasearch
marketplace, then added various forms of assisted booking. In recent years,
based on requests from customers according to co-founder and CEO Ross Veitch, Wego
added full-service bookings in its marketplace.
“If you book with us directly, it will be easier, because you probably registered with us previously, we've got your travel profile, we've got your payment information,” he said in an interview in the PhocusWire studio at Phocuswright
Europe in June.
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“But we will also show you the whole market. If you want to book direct with the carrier, that's an option. If you want to
book with one of our other [online travel agencies], that’s fine with us too. ... A lot of our OTA
partners are now our B2B suppliers, so effectively they are on the shelf
multiple times. If they book with them, they win. If they book with us, they also win.”
Along with adjusting its product, Wego has shifted its
geographic focus, with the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) becoming its
priority in the last decade.
In early 2022, Wego
acquired the Middle East business interest of online travel agency Cleartrip
from its owner, Flipkart.
The focus on the Middle East is paying off. Veitch said Wego’s
revenue as of June of this year was 15% above 2019 levels for that same period, and the company is “substantially more profitable” now than it was pre-COVID.
And some of that success, he said, is because, “The Middle
East is booming. Oil is still relatively high and that just flows straight
through to everything in the consumer economy. Prices for airfares are much
higher than they used to be, and people are traveling anyway.”
A key market in that region is Saudi Arabia, which has been pumping
huge amounts of money into building its brand as a travel destination and in
building the destination itself.
Veitch expressed confidence that Saudi Arabia will succeed in
its efforts to use tourism to diversify its economy and that its efforts to
reshape its world image are based on reality and not just marketing.
“The kingdom is changing really fast,” he said.
“If you haven’t been there recently, I encourage you to get
on a plane and check it out. It’s not all PR.”
Veitch also discussed why he believes generative artificial intelligence-based
assistants could become “the new gatekeepers” for e-commerce at companies such as Wego and
his predictions for future use of the technology.
Watch the full discussion below.
Phocuswright Europe 2023 Executive Interview: Wego