New Delhi  – With travellers from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia now comprising the largest user base of all six Gulf states for travel metasearch leader Wego, the role of online travel in the vanguard of B2C e-commerce looks set.  The scale of demand from within the KSA and the purchasing power of Saudis add huge momentum to the travel industry’s shift from offline channels to online within the Middle East.

Saudi Arabians and foreign residents living in the Kingdom are embracing the travel comparison site faster than even the rapid adoption of other communities in the region, with the volume currently tripling every two months.

Demand for a wider choice and control over travel plans has clearly favoured the metasearch model that compares the market, enabling users to make informed choices and book direct.  The response of travel agents, airlines and hotels keen to serve the KSA community by making more inventories available through Wego has also helped satisfy the increased searches online.

The range of destinations Saudi travellers and searching for flights and accommodation is also becoming more diverse.

“Travellers from the KSA are now considering options at over 2,000 destinations for trips this summer representing a huge opportunity for the industry.  Almost seven in ten transactions online are for air ticket purchases averaging over US$1,600, the highest in the region,” explained Mohamad Ibrahim Masri, Managing Director for Wego in the Middle East and North Africa. “Accommodation is also averaging almost US$900 per booking.”

Wego compares over 600 full service and low cost carriers and more than 800,000 accommodation options, including holiday rentals, to produce its comprehensive search results.

“Schedules and fares are being compared across the Kingdom’s domestic aviation network, from Abha and Yanbu to Jazan. It is not just the hubs that are seeing the traffic,” Masri added. Business travel associated with the oil industry has also scaled dramatically for Wego, with searches for Dharan quadrupling this season.

Trending destinations overseas are feeding into the growth.  Jakarta, gateway to the Indonesian archipelago now accounts for a substantial eight percent of KSA based search volumes to August, more than doubling in three years. Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur are also gaining popularity. Cairo has bounced to match London, with Bodrum coming up alongside regionally Hammamet and Rabat though the searches stretch “right into the longtail.”

Masri credits word-of-mouth recommendation for the universal growth, with Arabic speaking and expatriate users sharing their discovery having previously searched and compared individual sites to understand their options.  Another catalyst has been the company’s investment in a dedicated KSA site, sa.wego.com  specifically designed to reflect local travellers’ needs. It followed the launch of wego.ae, the world’s first comprehensive metasearch site in Arabic and English in the United Arab Emirates in April last year.

“Talking to Wego users, there is some pride felt in making faster and smarter decisions with this latest technology.  We are delighted that travellers in the KSA, opinion leaders in their own right, share the vision for the future of travel and we are grateful to them for adopting Wego,” concluded Masri.