Expedia Singapore (pictured below) is the first full service Expedia branded site that’s been launched post-the signing of the AirAsia-Expedia joint venture in March – it offers 1,400 hotels and 400 airlines, of which AirAsia is one, Lynn is quick to stress.

But it is clearly the exclusive access to the cheapest AirAsia flights that will differentiate Expedia from the other OTAs in Singapore – the joint venture agreement gives Expedia exclusive distribution rights beyondAirAsia.com of the airline’s flights and packages throughout Asia Pacific, with the exception of Australia and New Zealand.

Lynn said he had been encouraged by the numbers on Expedia Singapore so far. “It shows that the proposition of AirAsia flights in combination with our hotels is incredibly powerful.

“In Japan, where our package business is the biggest, it accounts for 20% of room nights. In Singapore, we are seeing 50% of room nights coming from packages so it shows that if you take a low cost carrier and bundle it into a package, it’s a great idea.” 

In Japan and India, where Expedia already had full service sites, the AirAsia content has been switched on. And competitor OTAs, including MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip and Yatra in India, have been notified by AirAsia to remove its inventory from their sites.

Dhruv Shringi, CEO of Yatra, told WIT he was initially a bit surprised by the request “given that Expedia has virtually no distribution of note in india”.

He said he didn’t see it having too much of an impact on Yatra and he added that Indian low cost carriers were also flying to the destinations that AirAsia flies to and were willing to offer attractive rates to the Indian OTAs.

Asked how cutting off its inventory from India’s three largest OTAs would benefit AirAsia, Lynn said the joint venture is for the longterm and “AirAsia has decided to work with someone proven who can build scale and volume for them.

“Don’t forget too that AirAsia’s built its own distribution network and direct channel and we can complement that.”

(Picture shows Expedia India offering “every flavour of South east Asia at the lowest cost”.)

(A check on MakeMyTrip tonight shows that AirAsia is still listed on the site and it will be interesting to see how this exclusivity is enforced. However this could be due to the fact that agreements have yet to expire and are being allowed to run out.) 

Lynn admitted that Expedia had lot more work to do in India. “Not many people knew we were there and we need to accelerate our investment to get brand awareness. Our sales have grown 400% in the past year but having said that, we still have lots of work to do.”

With sites like Cheaptickets coming into Singapore, promising consumers the ability to shop for low cost and full service airlines in one site, and Skyscanner setting up in the region, the market for flight search is getting crowded.

Said Lynn, “Our unique value is packages, and my focus will be on packages and hotels.”

A top priority is to build up hotel content in tertiary markets. This is where it will go full head-on with hotel-only sites like Agoda. Said Lynn, “I admire their focus, it’d be easy to say, let’s add car rental and so on, but they have stuck to their core and done really well.

“It seems in online travel, there are two strategies – come to us for this one thing or come to us and we will help you with your trip. We are in the latter category and we now have the advantage of having the best low cost airline inventory,” said Lynn.

He clarified there would be no Expedia AirAsia site as such and that the joint venture would work towards launching Expedia full service sites in markets such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, which were taking longer to roll out due to local complexities.

It also has responsibility for AirAsia Go and Lynn said that the site would continue to sell AirAsia flights and hotels. His objective is to improve the user experience and “market it like Jetstar Holidays for fans of AirAsia and in markets where AirAsia has a bigger profile than Expedia, such as Malaysia”.

GoRooms, which also falls under Lynn’s responsibility, is a standalone hotel site that was never launched and Lynn is still reviewing what to do with it.

“We have been focused on getting the AirAsia flights rolled out and getting the brand launched in Singapore. Moving forward, we will improve user experience on AirAsia Go and add Expedia’s hotel product into AirAsia Go.”

Asked if he was aware of the skepticism surrounding the joint venture, with naysayers citing “cultural conflict” as one key reason why it wouldn’t work, Lynn said, “Joint ventures have a bad reputation. The way you increase the chance of success is that you don’t give yourself any option – it’s like marriage but without the option of divorce.

“The moment you start to say, well, if it doesn’t work out and you have a Plan B, then you are not going to work at the hard stuff. You’ve got to say, there is no way out so I’ve got to do the hard stuff.”

His job is to take the best bits of both companies and blend the two. “I don‘t think our companies are that different, Expedia is 15 years old, AirAsia is 10. Both of us, given our scale, are relatively lean on people, we are a bit scrappy, we get things done, we don’t overthink.

“Expedia may be American but it has a global outlook, 45% of Expedia Inc’s business is outside the US and will pass 50% this year.”

As he sees it, it’s no different to when they launched Expedia Japan and it hired a local team and just got on with it. “We figured out what worked in Japan and did it.”

In Singapore, it’s about getting the basics right – offering the breadth of choice, exclusive AirAsia inventory, great value and easy to use. “Boring but you’ve got to get these basics right.”

As for the partnership between Expedia and Groupon signed in the US, Lynn said he wouldn’t be spending too much time on that. “The daily deals space is too noisy and frothy right now. At Expedia Singapore, we have phenomenal value everyday and maybe that’s what I need to do a better job at – to surface that and allow people to find deals that suit their budget much more easily.”

Note: Dan Lynn will be sharing more about the Expedia-AirAsia partnership and his thoughts on the online travel space at theWIT Conference, Oct 18-19.