TravTalk Middle East Online Magazine
Wego’s Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP), combined with Progressive Web App (PWA), is set to become the fastest loading mobile travel site in the world. Mamoun Hmedan, MD, Wego Middle East, North Africa and India, shares insights into the radical evolution of the region’s ‘mobile first’ travel market.
Q Please share your findings about the Middle East travel market.
Our analysis and expectations of what was to come in the Middle East travel market have been realised. The region’s travellers were quick to embrace online travel shopping, possibly quicker than any other emerging market, but the transition from desktop to a ‘mobile first’ market took place even faster, and today, Wego sees over 70 per cent of searches in the Middle East taking place on a mobile device.
Q What is different in terms of transactions?
The most striking difference we’ve seen on Wego for both flights and hotels over the last 12 months is the booking transaction numbers on mobile devices, with conversions increasing by 65 per cent. The continued increase in conversion rates is largely attributed to flight bookings, where the business has continued to grow exponentially. Another reason to which it can be attributed is the rise in the number of Android users, who have started using mobile to book flights and hotels, over the last one year. Initially, majority of our mobile conversions used to take place on iOS. Consumers today are more experienced and overall, much more secure making purchases through a better designed mobile device — which have larger screens and are more user friendly.
Q What has Wego introduced lately to support the ME market?
Wego redesigned and launched a new mobile site to mimic our travel app by rebuilding our static pages using AMP and the core search experience with PWA. Wego has decreased page load time from around 12 seconds to between .50 and 3 seconds to alleviate issues with slow, unstable networks. Since the launch, we have experienced around 50 per cent improvement in the click-to-search ratio during the first quarter of 2017 (y-o-y), led by UAE (23 per cent) and followed by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which equates to a 50 per cent increase in the number of users referred to our flight and hotel partners. In addition, Wego has remained in the top five most popular travel apps on iTunes and Google Play stores for a number of years throughout the region, with its local language, currency and familiar local travel brands proving a hit with the travellers. Wego has partnered with the majority of domestic, low-cost and full-service carriers — more than any other flight metasearch business in the region — and the convenience of shopping for travel on mobile, with well-known local suppliers, accelerated Wego’s popularity, making it the travel shopping app of choice.
Q Describe today’s Middle East travellers and Wego’s role in ME.
Middle East travellers are tech savvy and brand loyal, and once they experience the ease of using Wego, they repeat visits and spread the reputation by word of mouth. We continued to develop our product based on feedback from our users and tailored it to suit their individual needs, which has ultimately proven a great investment of our resources. Combining our product and content with the latest in mobile technology, Wego has become the most relevant product in the Middle East today. Wego committed to this market by establishing the Middle East headquarters in Dubai, driven by a talented local team with proven experience, and a shared motivation to support local travel businesses throughout the evolution the industry has undergone. Wego’s Middle East team has now doubled in response to our rapid growth, and a number of key commercial staff from the company’s Asia headquarters in Singapore will soon relocate to support the growing regional business. Wego was the first travel search site for both flights and hotels in the region to produce a mobile product in Arabic.
