“Larry Page”-like Ross Veitch has now re-assumed the top slot. With a new investor on board (Tiger) and a new office in Jakarta opening, the company seems to be going through a growth phase but with a twist. It is taking its brand of local metasearch out for a global spin.

What’s so special about the “new Wego”? It has taken a page out of the Skyscanner playbook and is targeting new country markets by offering local content in a new setting.

With many new languages now on offer, Wego is bringing the fight back to the Scottish contingent. Coincidently, Skyscanner put down a footprint in Singapore at the end of 2011.

Wego is putting in some significant work in the areas of social media and mobile. While its existing development team will stay in Singapore, Wego will move its social and mobile development to its new address in Jakarta in the very near future.

By Timothy O’Neil-Dunne

Read more: http://www.tnooz.com/2012/05/04/news/local-is-the-new-black-in-travel-search/

For the first time, UAE residents will be able to search and compare prices and availability for flights and hotels from travel agents, airlines and hotels directly and in one place.

Read more: http://www.ttgmena.com/Wego-introduces-first-Arabic-flights-and-hotels-metasearch-at-ATM/

Wego is tying up with all major travel portals in India to enable metasearch. Metasearch engine is a search tool which combines results from several search engines, giving a more comprehensive result to a query. Wego.co.in would collate the results of other portals or search engines like MakeMyTrip.com, Yatra.com, and Via.com.

By Ruchika Chitravanshi

Read more: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/metasearch-site-wegocom-to-travel-to-india/473134/

Dubai, April 30th, 2012 – Global travel metasearch company Wego, at the Arabian Travel Market today announced the public availability of www.wego.ae, the first flights and hotels metasearch website created for UAE residents and available in both Arabic and English. For the first time UAE residents will be able to search and compare prices and availability for flights and hotels from both travel agents as well as airlines and hotels directly, together in one place.

Wego.ae offers a comprehensive view of over 500 full-service and low cost carriers, as well as 350,000 accommodation options of all varieties, with search results ranked in order of those most favoured by other GCC residents. Powerful yet simple filters can be applied to match every search criteria and budget, translating into enormous time savings and producing more relevant search results.

Wego sees metasearch as an essential tool in helping travellers in this region make sense
of the increasingly complex travel market.

“Because of the Gulf’s strategic position between Europe and Asia and the success of airport mega-hubs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, residents are blessed with a very wide array of airline choices when travel planning,” explained Ross Veitch, Wego CEO & Co-Founder. “We believe Wego is the perfect tool to check prices, availability and schedules across this multitude of options to save time and pay less for their trip.”

Today’s announcement focused on the launch of the UAE site, but residents of other Arabic speaking nations will not have to wait long for travel metasearch services customised for their own travel needs as the company is putting the final touches to localised sites serving users in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, Bahrain and Egypt.

Even prior to the launch of the Arabic sites the company has seen extremely strong growth
from users across the region on its global english site wego.com. Visits from the UAE are up 49% quarter on quarter, Qatar is up 69% and growth from Saudi Arabia is even higher off what is an already fairly significant base for the company.

Travellers from this region are most frequently comparing flights within the GCC and into
India, Europe, Southeast Asia, the United States and China, though the long-tail of destination searches is exceptionally diverse reflecting business and leisure travel interests in every corner of the globe.

To accelerate growth in the region Wego has appointed as their commercial representative Dubai-based BizGate Marketing & Consultancies Services LLC, a dynamic, boutique marketing and consultancy agency specialising in travel and led by travel industry veteran Mohamad Ibrahim Masri.

“We are very excited to be working with Wego to deliver products designed specifically for travellers in this region,” commented Masri. “I am confident that Arabic as well and English speaking consumers here will quickly embrace Wego as the smarter way to shop for travel with so many options to choose from. For this innovative technology, the time has come.”

The company is now in the process of integrating additional regional airlines and hotel
groups directly into Wego, so that they can enjoy direct access to the millions of travellers using the metasearch tool every month, not just on wego.ae, but also across the global network of Wego travel sites. Veitch is attending Arabian Travel Market this week to meet
with partners.

He concluded:

“We are delighted to be in Dubai to meet industry partners and to launch wego.ae, reflecting our commitment to this region and to a programme of rapid expansion that will see travellers across the Gulf enjoy the benefits of customised flight and hotel metasearch technology.”

For more information, please contact:
Mohamad Ibrahim Masri
Director
BizGate
Marketing & Consultancies Services LLC.
Golden Business Center, Airport Road, Office No. 804
P.O.Box: 234558, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Tel: +971 4 298 1775 Mobile : +971506760033
Email: masri@wego.com
Website: www.bizgate.info

Caroline Bye
Press Office
Tel: +65 6438 8242
Email: press@wego.com

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. In 2010, Wego merged with HolidayIQ.com, an established India based travel content and community site. For more information, please visit http: www.wego.com/about

About BizGate
BizGate “BG” is a dynamic, boutique marketing and consultancy agency strategically
located in Dubai. BG started its activities in 2007, concentrating on travel, tourism and leisure marketing & Consultancies. Specialized in travel and hospitality PR and recognized for offering more than just business transaction and above all committed to build trust relationship. This accomplishment is based on our understanding of the needs and objectives of our clients. Our creative and integrated approach to marketing helped international companies to launch their business successfully, develop their brand, increase market share, improve your communications and help you get an advantage over your competitors. For more information please visit us on www.bizgate.info.

WEGO.AE – UNDER THE HOOD
Searching Flights:

• Over 500 airlines are presented, including the major GCC carriers such as Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and many more.
• Online travel agent (OTA’s) include Expedia, ebookers.com, Airfare.com and Travelation with more partnerships to be revealed soon.
• AJAX powered filters, sliders and dynamic sort options provide a multitude of defined flight options narrowed down to a manageable list, suited to personal choices and needs. Once selection is made the user is directed to providers website to complete the booking.

Searching Accommodation:

• Accommodation providers include online industry giants such as Agoda, Expedia and Booking.com as well as hotel chains InterContinental Hotels Group, Accor, Starwood, and more.
• Hotel Reviews are aggregated from multiple sites and summarised showing users a consensual view at a glance.
• Users’ most popular hotel choices both domestically and internationally are clearly displayed, gathered from Wego’s data mining activity based on millions of UAE-based travel movements over the past year.

Read more: http://www.etravelblackboard.com/article/130993/wego-shares-innovative-technology-with-new-apis

The APIs provide developers, publishers, entrepreneurs, in fact any businesses, with the ability to access Wego’s innovative travel metasearch facility, content and even airfares from Wego providers, as well as the scope to adapt the application to suit their own model.

“The APIs open endless opportunities for businesses,”

explained Affiliate Manager, Allister Barretto.

“They give companies the opportunity to develop their own travel web and mobile applications, desktop software and branded versions suited to their own specific interests and that of their users, who they can also profile using Wego’s sophisticated analytic tools.”

API content can be retrieved in 20 languages and from any geo-location using Wego’s feeds from hundreds of global travel partners. An analytic dashboard provides real-time metrics for analysing and reporting of traffic and revenue.

“Mobile OS makers release software development kits to help developers build applications around their ecosystems,” said Barretto. “These apps get valued at millions of dollars. We’ve released something similar within our vertical and we’ve exposed an API which allows developers to plug into our platform and create something valuable along with a program that enables them to monetise what they build.”

Currently available in beta the APIs cover all of Wego’s hotel and flight products with plans for packages, most recent airfare searches and deals to roll out in the near future. The applications are extremely user friendly, with requests made over HTTP and responses in JSON format (XML in some cases).

The Wego Hotels API and Flights Hotels API are aimed at providing developers with Wego’s metasearch capabilities without having to deal with the complexities inherent with maintaining the facility.

“Wego’s APIs will continue to evolve as we make further developments, however we will ensure backwards capability so that users of original versions will not be affected by the updates,” said Barretto. “We’re excited that these APIs can be used in conjunction with our popular Affiliate Program which helps developers to monetise booking referrals with ease generated from their own sites and applications.”

Developers will need to apply for an API key, which is currently only available on request via affiliates.support@wego.com.

Full documentation on the Wego Affiliate Program is available at: http://www.wego.com/affiliates.

For more information on joining the Wego Affiliate Program and getting access to the Wego APIs, contact allister@wego.com. For API-specific enquiries and support, contact api@wego.com.

Full documentation on the Hotels API is available at http://www.wego.com/api/hotels/docs.

Full documentation on the Flights API is available at http://www.wego.com/api/flights/docs.

For media enquiries, please contact:
Caroline Bye
Press Office
Email: caroline@wego.com

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. 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. In 2010, Wego merged with HolidayIQ.com, an established India based travel content and community site. For more information, please visit http: www.wego.com/about

Manila, April 24th, 2012 – Where Filipino travellers have traditionally searched across many different travel sites to compare prices, a growing community are harnessing Wego’s latest metasearch technology to surface the best deals, using savings on real-time airfares to buy better hotel rooms.

With twice the number of ‘early adopters’ of the typical internet profile in the Philippines, the tech-savy group using wego.com.ph which displays the best options on a single screen, are travelling more frequently and in more comfort according to a usage study by Wego and demographic analysis from Effective Measure.  Wego has seen users move up from tourist class accommodation to 3-star mid-range hotels, which have increased from 24 to 27 per cent of searches; to 4-star rising from 26  to 31 per cent and 5-star from 16 to 20 per cent, just over the course of 2011.

Wego is hugely encouraged by the findings because it demonstrates the tangible value
attached to shopping online for travel intelligently, using a neutral comparison site displaying available airfares and live hotel inventory.

“What you see on wego.com.ph is also real. We include the fees with the low cost fares as well as the details of what you get with your room rate,”

commented Wego’s Chief Commercial Officer, Craig Hewett.

“This way you can select your booking partners carefully from our partner airline sites, online travel agents and hotels. wego.com.ph is delivering on its promise to help travellers save time, pay less and travel more.”

The result for Wego has been a spectacular jump in traffic year-to-date: a 197 per cent
increase in domestic flight searches, which make up 42 per cent of the total and 132 per cent increase in international airfare searches.

Hewett credits women in the Philippines for much of the growth as they now represent
almost 58 per cent of users, compared to a market average of just 48 per cent.

Top ranked destinations searched on wego.com.ph

Domestic 

1. Baguio
2. Manila
3. Boracay
4. Cebu
5. Tagaytay
6. Davao
7. Palawan
8. Subic Bay
9. Puerto Galera
10. Batangas

International

1.  Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. Macau
4. Malaysia
5. Thailand
6. China
7. Taiwan
8. USA
9. Indonesia
10. Japan

Domestically, there are many more searches in the secondary cities and less concentration on Manila, Baguio, Boracay and Cebu. Travellers are looking across the entire domestic route network. Internationally, the focus is shifting more towards Australia (up 164 per cent), the USA (up 145 per cent), Macau (up 172 per cent), with searches doubling for Hong Kong and South Korea increasing four fold.

Wego.com.ph aggregates flight and hotel content from over 500 airlines, 350,000 accommodation options and 150 different travel suppliers to allow the user to search and compare instantly on the one screen all available travel options, linked directly to supplier sites for transaction completion.

Wego recently launched the site in the Philippines in response to demand for a localised version from Filipino users at home and many abroad using wego.com.

For more information, please contact:

Caroline Bye
Press Office
Email: caroline@wego.com
Tel: +65 6438 8242

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. In 2010, Wego merged with HolidayIQ.com, an established India based travel content and community site. For more information, please visit http: www.wego.com/about

About Effective Measure
Effective Measure is the leading provider of digital media planning solutions in the emerging markets, bringing best practice online measurement data to premium publishers, platforms, agencies and advertisers. Our products and services offer media planners invested in Oceania, South East Asia, Middle East North Africa and South Africa, a clear insight into the state of the Internet and the ever-growing digital population.

Some might say that the travel industry had a very similar appearance for many years, but now the two worlds have collided online and the picture is very different.

Read more: http://www.webintravel.com/news/its-a-mans-world-not-online-it-isnt_3137