Leading travel metasearch website and travel app, Wego, has teamed up with Almosafer, a fast growing online travel agency based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as its first local OTA partner.
Ross Veitch: Saudi Arabia is one of Wego’s fastest growing markets.
Ross Veitch, Wego chief executive officer and co-founder, announced the partnership at WIT Middle East in Dubai, which opens today.
“With Almosafer.com, our first Saudi-based OTA partner, going live with Wego today we are able to offer our users Almosafer’s great range of hotel deals, popular local payment options such as Sadad and ‘Pay Later’, and first class customer service for Saudis by Saudis,” he said.
The Kingdom is now one of Wego’s fastest growing markets, as “online travel planning and booking has been enthusiastically adopted by travellers from Saudi Arabia in recent years,” added Veitch.
Farooq Aljeraisy, CEO & founder of Almosafer, said its partnership with Wego would enable it to reach new segments of the Saudi Arabian market who are looking for the best prices and best value .
“Today we are launching with Wego in KSA, but very soon we expect to expand the partnership into new markets as part of Almosafer’s aggressive expansion plans for 2015/16,” he added.
New partners: Wego & Almosafer
Wego first entered the Saudi market with a fully localised metasearch product in 2012, and is now used by more than million Saudi travellers each month. Its other Saudi based partners include national carrier Saudia, low cost carrier Flynas, and Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (Wego powers its official tourism website).
Wego estimated the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) online travel market to be worth about US$29 billion in 2014, and that Saudi Arabia was the largest individual country based on point of sale.
Saudi Arabia has a mobile penetration rate of over 100%, and e-commerce growth in general and online travel specifically is being driven by smartphone users.
• Featured image credit (Camels in Rub al Khali/Empty-Quarter): ZambeziShark/iStock
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