Wego launches first Arabic flights & hotels metasearch site

Global travel metasearch company Wego used the Arabian Travel Market as the platform to make its move into the Middle East with www.wego.ae, the first flights and hotels metasearch website created for UAE residents.

It is available in both Arabic and English. For the first time UAE residents will be able to search and compare prices and availability for flights and hotels from both travel agents as well as airlines and hotels directly, together in one place.

Wego.ae offers a comprehensive view of over 500 full-service and low cost carriers, as well as 350,000 accommodation options of all varieties, with search results ranked in order of those most favoured by other GCC residents.

Wego sees metasearch as an essential tool in helping travellers in this region make sense of the increasingly complex travel market.

“Because of the Gulf’s strategic position between Europe and Asia and the success of airport mega-hubs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, residents are blessed with a very wide array of airline choices when travel planning”, explained Ross Veitch, Wego CEO & Co-Founder. “We believe Wego is the perfect tool to check prices, availability and schedules across this multitude of options to save time and pay less for their trip.”

The announcement focused on the launch of the UAE site, but residents of other Arabic speaking nations will not have to wait long for travel metasearch services customised for their own travel needs as the company is putting the final touches to localised sites serving users in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, Bahrain and Egypt.

Even prior to the launch of the Arabic sites, the company has seen strong growth from users across the region on its global English site wego.com. Visits from the UAE are up 49% quarter on quarter, Qatar is up 69% and growth from Saudi Arabia is even higher off what is an already fairly significant base for the company.

Travellers from this region are most frequently comparing flights within the GCC and into India, Europe, Southeast Asia, the United States and China, though the long-tail of destination searches is exceptionally diverse reflecting business and leisure travel interests in every corner of the globe.

To accelerate growth in the region Wego has appointed as their commercial representative Dubai-based BizGate Marketing & Consultancies Services LLC, a marketing and consultancy agency specialising in travel and led by travel industry veteran Mohamad Ibrahim Masri.

“We are very excited to be working with Wego to deliver products designed specifically for travellers in this region,” commented Masri. “I am confident that Arabic as well and English speaking consumers here will quickly embrace Wego as the smarter way to shop for travel with so many options to choose from. For this innovative technology, the time has come.”

The company is now in the process of integrating additional regional airlines and hotel groups directly into Wego, so that they can enjoy direct access to the millions of travellers using the metasearch tool every month, not just on wego.ae, but also across the global network of Wego travel sites.