AirAsia's Expansion Into Online Travel Draws Skepticism From Potential Competitors
Skift Take
It's obvious that executives from Booking, Expedia, and Rakuten are laying odds that AirAsia won't be very successful in striving to add online travel agency services. Several airlines have already tried and failed at it, although AirAsia seems to be undertaking a much more thoughtful and rigorous approach.
Go ahead. Give it a try. But, good luck with that.
This may summarize the skepticism among Asia-based online travel agency executives when it comes to AirAsia's foray beyond its own flights and into selling flights from other airlines, as well as hotels, tours and activities, and other e-commerce services.
Asked if she was ready to give AirAsia any advice about entering the online travel agency arena, Marsha Ma, vice president and managing director, China, for Booking.com, cautioned that "the OTA business, especially the accommodations business, is a pretty heavy business model in terms of supply chain management."
"It takes years of effort, it takes offices in more than 192 country locations in the world for Booking to build up our supply chain capability," Ma said. "We’ll keep our eyes on that. We’ll see how things go with time.”
Speaking on a panel entitled "Deep Dive: OTAs Face Off in Asia" at Skift Forum Asia in Singapore last week, Ma advised AirAsia to focus on the customer and changing consumer behavior to build its strategy.
Fellow panelist Greg Schulze, senior vice president, commercial st
