The company, that owns the leading meta search sites in travel – travel.jp andhotel.jp – saw a 20% revenue growth in the travel segment, reaching US$15million.

CEO Kei Shibata (left) said he was particularly happy with the record high third quarter result “which was better than satisfactory, given the tough post-crisis environment”.

The shift to mobile is happening at a tremendous speed, he said, adding he expects that its mobile traffic could be equal to PCs by the end of this year.

About 25% of overall traffic is coming from mobile for its two travel sites.

He said the tendency by users to book at the last minute has become a regular pattern since the crisis. OTAs and meta search sites are playing a huge role in this change in behaviour, he said.

He said that suppliers such as hotels and airlines, particularly the low cost carriers, are increasingly keen to market directly to users potentially bypassing travel agents and OTAs.

“We are getting positive responses from many hotels for Hotel.jp,” he said.

His priorities this year are to invest in social media. “We want to build up the social team, integrate more social plug-ins. Facebook may be a single focus.”

In the area of mobile, it would further optimize its smartphone pages and upgrade and build apps.

The company’s strategic relationship with Colopl, the mobile gaming service, struck last year is beginning to kick in, delivering value to its users as well as Colopl’s.

He is keen to enhance the relationship this year. “Our eyes are wide open to new start-ups as potential collaborators particularly in the area of gamfication x travel and social travel.”

Top 10 destinations on Travel.jp (tour packages)

Domestic: Okinawa, Hokkaido, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Niigata, Nagano, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Kagoshima

International: Korea, Hawaii, Guam, Taiwan, China, Singapore, United States, Italy, Thailand, France