Interview: How HotelsCombined Builds a Brand Out of an Affiliate Business
Photo Credit: Hichame Assi is the COO of HotelsCombined. HotelsCombined
Skift Take
Can a metasearch company serve two masters: its affiliate partners and its own brand? HotelsCombined is dancing that dance and will let us all know the answer eventually.
Founded in 2005 in Sydney, Australia, metasearch company HotelsCombined built its business through affiliate partnerships but recently has been on a brand-building expedition of its own.
While Booking.com, Expedia.com and Trivago may jockey for voice in U.S. TV advertising, HotelsCombined has been busy touting its brand on TV in Korea, Russia, the Middle East, France, the UK, Ireland and Australia, and to a lesser extent last year in Japan and Brazil.
Skift spoke with HotelsCombined COO Hichame Assi about the challenges of building a brand from the far reaches of Sydney even as the company, with its affiliate slant, says it offers hotels in more than 120,000 destinations and operates in more than 40 languages, supporting some 120 currencies. The interview was conducted as part of our trends report The State of Travel Metasearch in 2015.
Buy the Report
An edited version of the interview follows:
Skift: It's evident that 2013 was a big year for metasearch because of the
