Cooke: I will stay paranoid and focused

The "perpetual motion" of the web environment and the constant, dynamic changes means that Robbie Cooke, group CEO and managing director of the Wotif Group, will remain paranoid for as long as he remains in charge of the group.

I caught up with Cooke, who was on one of his flying visits to the region last week, over coffee and we had a wide-ranging discussion about how the group was doing, his reading of the market and, of course, his response to new developments such as the launch of Google's travel meta-search.

To catch the full interview, watch this video.

On the day we spoke, Google had just made the news the day before and Cooke said that from what he saw, the development could "spread paid search content across the web and expose the Wotif product even more".

We also spoke about the disruption in the value chain with new players entering the market and possibly changing the consumer value proposition - ie, the value proposition to the customer may no longer be focused on the moment of the sale but on the value at each point for the consumer - and if the OTA model was under threat.

Cooke took this in his stride, saying that what was important was not losing focus on what one did well. His belief is, if you do what you do well and continue to deliver value, you're okay.

Also, don't underestimate the power of the brand, he said. Consumers want to buy from a brand they trust and with 10 years behind it and more than 400 employees, well, Wotif's built up a reliable business and brand that may not be so easily disrupted by some new player touting new tools.

Plus, he said, Wotif is not standing still in the space. It bought GoDo, which allows users to find and book thousands of activities across Australia, and it launched Wotflight earlier this year.

Wotflight, an online search engine for business and leisure travellers in Australia, offers the ability to compare airfares in one window, as well as book and receive immediate confirmation. The group has taken a patent over Wotflight's "new way of searching for flights".

It currently has Australian domestic flights on offer initially, and will be progressively launching Trans-Tasman and an international booking service.

Apart from this, Cooke says the group has four years worth of projects to roll out.

As paranoid as he has to be, you can see that Cooke's pleased with the results of the group this far.

For the first half of its financial year (July to December 2009), the group posted a 34% increase in half-year profit delivering a record profit (after tax) of A$27.6m. That's after selling, during the same period, 3.7 million room nights sold, up 22%, out of which 587,000 room nights were sold in Asia, an increase of 20%.

He remains upbeat about Asia and says his group will remain focused on the region. Two-fifths of its global team - 190 staff - are based in the region.

But he sounded a more cautionary note this time round, saying that last year's strong growth was due to the "rate environment" and if that changes, well, who knows if demand might drop?

He was particularly upbeat about Singapore calling it "a key travel node" in the region and it "has always had a strong focus in our business strategy".

"While it is a leading outbound travel source in the region, Singapore is also increasingly popular as a destination, particularly for intra-region tourists.

"Certainly with the rising strength of the growing dollar, we have seen a growing number of Australians - particularly with Wotif.com - travel to Singapore. If these trends continue, we are likely to see a boost in inbound travel bookings - both Australia-sourced and otherwise - to Singapore in the coming years."