Media Release
Webjet Congratulates Travelocity
25th January 2006
Webjet, Australia's leading internet travel service provider and multi award winner today extends particular congratulations to the American Travelocity group on its announced acquisition of Zuji.
Commenting, Webjet's Managing Director, David Clarke, said: "we consider Travelocity has been very realistic in its assessment of the internet travel environment in Australia recognising that the Australian internet travel territory is a vastly different experience to that of the American, and other parts of the world, to the extent that it is in this country led by Webjet and that the prospects of a new, even mega operator with the skills of Travelocity gaining substantial traction in this market without a step of the type they have taken, would have been exceedingly remote.
Zuji in Australia has of course gained minimal market share even though it has based its operations around Travelocity technology and we will be watching with respectful interest Travelocity's plans for the local operation.
The overall step indicates conclusively to us that the entry barriers into serious distribution of travel on the internet in this country are vastly greater than may appear at first glance and from our analysis of market share data the gap between ourselves and the smaller players is becoming larger and larger every month. Our recent national television campaign on Channel 10 has materially increased our market reach and we expect that trend to continue over the next few months. In our view the entry barriers are now so substantial, both in terms of technology requirements, brand awareness, in particular repeat business management, that even the very major American operations such as Travelocity and Expedia will find this a very tough market and certainly Webjet is not about to gift wrap our customers and surrender any form of market share.
There is a concurrent tidal wave in Australia where increasingly potentially travellers are voting with their mouse clicks away from airline sites in the search with the ability to mix, match and aggregate different airlines to obtain the best travel value.
The combination of these factors has been the key driver of Webjet's stellar growth rate over the last 12 months which now exceeds 200%.