Following the sale of its Asia Pacific division back to founder and chairman Ralph Bartel late last year, the deal-publisher and media company Travelzoo is ready to expand its wings in the region.
There will be no new launches however; growth will come from leveraging and building upon its five assets in the region, said Brad Gurrie, General Manager, Australia and Southeast Asia for Travelzoo.
“We now have more than 2.8 million subscribers across Asia Pacific and will shortly announce three million subscribers. We anticipate this growth will continue throughout next year.”
Last October, Travelzoo’s Asia-Pacific division, including Travelzoo Hong Kong, Travelzoo Japan, Travelzoo China, Travelzoo Taiwan and Travelzoo Australia, passed into the private hands of Ralph, the brother of Travelzoo’s CEO Holger.
The privatization was prompted by weak revenues in the Asia Pacific division – for the 12 months ended June 30, 2009, Travelzoo’s Asia Pacific division reported revenues of approximately US$1.5 million with an operating loss of US$7.8 million.
Back in August 2009, Holger Bartel said, “While we remain upbeat about business prospects in Asia Pacific, we believe we can currently create more shareholder value by redirecting and focusing our investments in other areas of the Travelzoo franchise where we see more compelling near-term growth opportunities, such as in Europe, North America, and our new Fly.com search engine. Consequently, we intend to sell our Asia Pacific division.”
The privatization was seen as a way in which Travelzoo, which also operates travel search engine, Fly.com, to expand its business in Asia, without it being a drag on the publicly-traded business in the US.
Travelzoo recently opened an office in Singapore which will cover South-east Asia. It appointed Calvin Choi advertising sales director – Choi previously led Expedia’s media sales in Asia Pacific. It now has more than 60 staff located in eight offices across the Asia Pacific region.
Gurrie said that Travelzoo Asia Pacific has acquired over 600 advertisers ranging from hotels, airlines, cruise operators, OTA’s, travel agents, wholesalers and entertainment providers. “The depth and breadth of advertisers have seen revenues grown to yearly quarter-on-quarter, exceeding 100%.”
On a global basis, Travelzoo now has 21 million members subscribing to 11 Travelzoo publications.
Said Gurrie, “The South East Asian travel landscape is an exciting region that contains some of the world’s best leisure travel destinations and products; so this makes for really interesting content to our global audience.”
He said its Australian, Chinese, and Japanese publications have seen rapid growth. “Subscribers in these markets have more than doubled year on year. The growth and engagement of our audience in these markets are predominantly driven by the Travelzoo team, subscriber marketing and our unique production process. Each publication around the world has a team of producers who are trained journalists, researching, evaluating and test booking the deals. We are also consulting with travel companies to make sure their deals will drive demand and be engaging to our audience.”
And even though the deals may have dried up this year (with the exception of Thailand), compared with last year’s deals bonanza, Gurrie said the Travelzoo model had held up amid the competition. “Seasonality, regional events and booking patterns will always exist and impact travel demand. Travelzoo, as a media company, will continue to work with travel companies to craft tactical offers to fill lull periods.”
Gurrie said the Travelzoo model was not about creating a deal-driven mentality among consumers but about “publishing travel deals that inspire consumers to experience or do things that they never thought were possible.
“We work closely with travel companies to launch short, sharp and value driven offers which will drive demand only when it is needed. Travelzoo provides expertise, knowledge and a user group that responds to offers immediately. This safe environment is all about generating incremental demand and not displacing revenues.”
Calling Asia Pacific “the most exciting region of the world”, he said, “We have solid consumer confidence and a buoyant emerging travel market. These conditions place the region in the box seat for innovation and creativity. It will be particularly interesting to see mobile technology and social media being embraced for further distribution of travel content and products.”
Brad Gurrie will be speaking at WIT on a session on “Long live the romance of travel”. “I always enjoy the week of WIT and ITB. It is a great chance to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. I’m also really looking forward to participating in the "Long live the romance of travel” session to share my perspective on what makes people so passionate about travel.”
