Expedia Sees Asia Instrumental For Future Success

KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 (Bernama) -- Online travel company, Expedia, Inc, will focus on Asia in the mid-term future and plans to grow the region into its second largest market in the next five years. "The company's culture of data-driven insights made it clear that its success in the next 10 to 20 years would depend on how well it performed in Asia," its President/Chief Executive Officer of Expedia, Dara Khosrowshahi, said at the recent launch of Expedia Innovation Lab for Asia in Singapore. In a statement Wednesday, he said, with the projection that two-thirds of the world's population would live in Asia by 2030, the Asian travel market was expected to grow four times faster than North America and two-and-a half times faster than Europe. "The investments we are making here -- such as the Expedia Innovation Lab, which allows us to understand our customers in Asia better; investing in our people and in technology that serves better both the travellers and our partners, are all geared towards our success in Asia," he said. Khosrowshahi said Expedia was expected to hire 5,000 engineers over the next five years, majority of them would come from Asia, in addition to the current 5,000 engineers it employed globally. Expedia is one of the largest travel companies in the world, generating US$72 billion (US$1 = RM4.43) in gross bookings in 2016 on 200 sites in 75 countries and 35 languages. Its success is based on investing heavily in technology to understand the real outcomes that customers’ desire and innovating to create new ways to fulfil them. Meanwhile, Khosrowshahi said, AAE Travel Pte Ltd, a joint-venture company between Expedia group and AirAsia Bhd, has been overseeing both Expedia and AirAsiaGo points-of-sale across the region since 2011. To-date, Expedia has become the majority shareholder in the company with 75 per cent equity stake, he said. "AirAsia has been a fantastic partner. We had a decent position in Asia and looking at the North America growth rates. We were happy with our business in Asia. "We had no idea that Asia offered such a significant and rapid growth until our partnership with AirAsia. It kicked us into an aggressive stage of growth through its scale and deep insights into this region," he said. --BERNAMA