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Hotels.com books more growth in Asia

September 03, 2010 |

Online travel giant Expedia had fewer than 20 employees in Hong Kong and no Chinese-language website when Johan Svanstrom took on his role as Asia-Pacific vice president of Expedia unit Hotels.com five years ago. Now the company has 13 new country-specific websites in the region and more than 160 staff.

Though the online travel space in Asia is still in its nascent stages and most travelers still prefer to book their travel in person, "it is just an amount of time before the ketchup comes out of the bottle and Asia dwarfs all else [when it comes to travel,]" says Mr. Svanstrom. Last year alone, the Asia-Pacific division of Hotels.com saw more than 100% growth in revenue, multiples faster than any other region in the world, he says.

Next on Hotels.com's target list is China. Mr. Svanstrom says he expects the country will become a key market in the online-travel business that separates the leaders from the rest.

"Everything in China is going to be magnified, just by the sheer number of people there alone," he says. Competition is also expanding fast and includes local online-travel specialists, such as Ctrip.com International Ltd., as well as powerful internet generalists such as Alibaba Group; China's largest e-commerce operator earlier this year started selling airline tickets on its site and that of its retail brand, Taobao.com.

Get the full story at The Wall Street Journal

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