Last month travel portal TripZilla sent out a press release to announce the launch of its new flight metasearch, FlyZilla, with a rather bold headline “FlyZilla, the Flight Metasearch that says No to OTAs”.
Current flight metasearch engines are dominated by airfares from online travel agencies (OTAs), said TripZilla. Its new product wants to fill this gap by excluding OTA inventory from search results, and focus exclusively on displaying direct airfares and promotions from the airlines.
“Consumers do not get market transparency as inventory from airlines are under represented on the metasearch front. This is especially so for the low cost carriers (LCCs) where it is usually cheapest and most reliable for consumers to book direct with the LCCs, and yet the metasearch engines send users to book with the OTAs,” stated the release.
Winnie Tan: We’re a start-up, so we need to pick our battles.
WIT recently caught up with TripZilla CEO, Winnie Tan, to find out more on this new product and why it wants to join the fray with yet another flight metasearch, and fight for a share of the market against established brands like Skyscanner and Kayak.
“We do really believe the future is in direct bookings, whether flights or accommodation. It is obvious that the brands prefer that. Advancements in online tech and media makes it cheaper and viable for brands, even smaller ones, to operate their own booking engines and do their own online marketing,” explained Tan.
On the rather bold headline about not wanting to work with OTAs, and at the risk of offending them, Tan said: “We’re a start-up, so we need to pick our battles. Can’t please everyone. The OTAs are over-served by the metas already, so makes sense for us to side the brands.
“Besides, AirAsia group CEO Tony Fernandes once advised start-ups to consider saying controversial stuff for better publicity.”
Despite going head to head with the metasearch “giants”, Tan is confident of carving a niche in flight search if initial response to FlyZilla is to be a gauge.
Travellers can search for flights and fares directly with FlyZilla.
According to the press release, FlyZilla beta launched in April this year and has over 10,000 app installs with over a million searches (at time of the conversation).
“We tapped on our own TripZilla platforms for initial marketing. The air tickets giveaway campaigns helps to drive installs too. The users love the air ticket giveaways and push notification of flight deals on the app,” said Tan.
It gave itself five months from beta to full launch. “It is usually good for start-ups to launch early to get feedback. However, flight metasearch isn’t a new concept and we are up against giants like Skyscanner and Kayak, who have invested years and millions into their products. So we wanted to polish up FlyZilla first because people will compare and if our product is shabby it will be dismissed immediately.”
Tan said revenue comes primarily from media sales instead of affiliate commissions. “We have a sales team that goes out to sell/build relationships with our advertisers. We pitch integrated branding and marketing campaigns, such as classified listings, display banners, advertorials, email marketing, and social media campaigns.
“By offering the free FlyZilla flight metasearch, TripZilla looks to attract more booking stage travel consumers.“
FlyZilla on the mobile app.
Tan, however, declined to be more specified at revenue forecast. “It’s too early to share any revenue forecasts with the public. But we certainly intend to use FlyZilla to open up new working relationships with the airlines.”
Currently travellers from Singapore can use the website or its mobile apps to easily compare airfares and discover flight deals with FlyZilla, which covers flight promotions and airfares of the top 100 outgoing routes.
“Our airline partners inform us of their upcoming promotions. We also sign up to the mailing lists of all airlines and monitor all their social media pages. As the airlines post new deals, we collate them and put up the deals on FlyZilla. It’s really a simple idea and it helps the consumers so much because they now have a one-stop location to check all flight deals,” said Tan.
Additionally airlines that want to further amplify their deals to FlyZilla’s audience can tap on its classifieds, app push notifications, and weekly travel deal emails, “by paying us”, she added.
Next on the list to use FlyZilla are Malaysia and Philippines. “mainly because these are also key markets that TripZilla is already in,” said Tan.
“In time, more airlines and routes will be added to extend coverage across the rest of South-east Asia”.
Currently TripZilla is working with airlines such as AirAsia, Scoot, Firefly, Malaysia Airlines, Japan Airlines, Oman Air, Asiana, and Bangkok Air.
