Going global tough but “we are up to it” |Yeoh Siew Hoon interviews Expedia boss Dara Khosrowshahi

Going global has its challenges, as Expedia Inc has found out. Dara Khosrowshahi, president and CEO, said it has taken the company 11 years to set up the Expedia brand in 19 countries.

“It’s really hard, it takes a long time to establish a foothold.”

And it’s even harder to establish a presence in Asia than in Europe, he said.

“Asia is not one market. Japan is different from India which is different from China. There’s never been a global leisure travel brand in Asia.

“It’s a big, big job but we are up to it,” he said.

Currently, two thirds of Expedia’s revenues come from within the US and he expects a 50:50 split to be achieved within the next five years.

The hotels.com model has been easier to export, he said, and as such, the typical strategy has been to enter with the hotel site, followed by the Expedia brand.

Going global was not just about increasing sales but leveraging technology and the brand name. “Travel is a true international business and you get a global scale and network effect for both consumers and suppliers,” he said.

He shared some statistics – 60 million unique visitors a month, 730,000 global flight searches a day and next year, it expects to translate 500 million words. Altogether, the company operates 70 different sites in 30 languages.

While domestic US sales was down, he said that trans-Atlantic and intra-Asia were still growing.

He said Expedia would continue to develop its model from pure transaction to hybrid models and would make significant media plays.

“Amazon is taking text ads for travel services. Every single retailer is doing it to drive new revenues especially in these economic times.”

Advertising accounts for 10% of Expedia’s revenues currently.