On the eve of the inaugural WIT Middle East, travel metasearch site Wego launched the world’s first dedicated flights and hotels travel metasearch mobile app in Arabic for iOS.

The app comes complete with right to left language support for comfortable navigation of Wego’s extensive global metasearch platform, available in multiple currencies, displaying both local and global air services and accommodation options. An Arabic right to left language support for Android will be available soon.

“The response from GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries to Wego’s fully Arabised site has been overwhelming,” said Mohamad Ibrahim Masri, managing director of Wego Middle East and North Africa. “This is particularly true of mobile and tablet users, so it made complete sense to invest in a fully localised version of our mobile app, especially where experts predict an almost 14-fold increase in MENA mobile data traffic by 2018.”

Wego was the first comprehensive travel metasearch site to be launched in the Middle East, also in Arabic – Wego UAE – in 2012.

“We continue to build valuable partnerships with local travel tourism businesses in the region including Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, GulfAir, Musafir, ArabRooms and more to be announced shortly,” added Mohamad Masri.

Tourism businesses can now also use their own branded version of Wego’s metasearch platform on mobile in Arabic, using Wego’s APIs available through the Wego Affiliate Network.

The company’s free travel metasearch app was recently launched in its core markets, and is rapidly gaining traction; ranking number one new travel app in Singapore, China and Thailand, number two in India, and in the top 100 in 20 countries.

“We’ve had very positive reviews of the application so far and the download momentum is continuing to accelerate,” said Matthew Varley, Wego’s chief operating officer.

“There were a number of challenges that we faced in developing an authentic user experience in Arabic that would meet the expectations of the local market. We spent a great deal of time consulting our Arabic speaking colleagues so that every minute detail was reviewed and verified. We paid careful attention to numbers, calendars, currencies and labels and the complexities of tools required for right to left translation, screen transition directions and swipe gestures were all a huge challenge,”

Wego is now providing one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world with over 400,000 hotel options and over 700 low-cost and full service carrier airfares on mobile.

“With the ability to identify last minute hotel and airfare options quickly, along with advanced sorting and filtering options, we believe the app will be enormously popular,” Varley said.