Face-to-Face: Tudor Coman
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Tudor Coman reveals the concept behind Flocations, a new Singapore-based meta-search company specialising in package holidays…
1) Can you tell is a little about Flocations and how the company came about?
In 2011 we created a visual meta-search for flights product. Much like Skyscanner or Kayak, we would fetch many flights and display them for you. The difference was that you would search using a budget rather a destinations and once you put in your budget, we had a map that would dynamically re-arrange itself in real-time to show you where you could go for you budget and give you new travel ideas – unfortunately our traction for that product wasn’t the best but it shows just how dedicated we are to innovation in travel and now we’re trying to bring innovation into travel packages in Southeast Asia.
2) Package holidays are still usually booked via travel agents. Do you think online selling will catch on?
Right now, Flocations itself does not take payments from users. We just give users the ability to search the travel packages that local agencies have in their inventory, which is about 3,500 packages. The booking is still made via the travel agency.
We are experimenting with sending traffic to third parties that can book online – for example AsiaTravel.com and Expedia.com have dynamic packages creation, which can be booked directly on their websites. We then send users to their sites to book online as well as sending users to offline travel agencies to book in the traditional method. We are the equivalent of Google search specifically for travel packages.
It’s inevitable that online booking will be the way to go, however in Asia, 80% of travel is still purchased offline. We believe in working with partners to give them the ability to do both and hope to eventually get everyone booking online.
3) How much content do you currently have, and what destinations are the most popular among Singaporean travellers?
For Singaporeans, the most popular hot spots are the countries in Southeast Asia. We see many packages being purchased for Malaysia for family travel and quick getaways and we see lots of couples booking weekend getaways to Bangkok, for example. This is where packages and free and easy holidays are a much better value than booking online separately such as a flight and hotel because the travel agency will usually negotiate a spa treatment, bottle of wine and airport transportation for the same price. Packages shine for these types of getaways.
For further out destinations such as Europe, these are more popular on a seasonal basis – everyone seems to travel according to holidays or school breaks and usually book months in advance.
4) You have indicated that Flocations could expand to other Southeast Asian countries. Where do you have in mind?
Ten percent of our traffic comes from Indonesia and we have not spent one dime marketing there. We see great potential there, since Indonesia has a massive mobile community and our website is made for mobile, plus we already have inventory in Bahasa Indonesian. However, we anticipate challenges to obtaining more inventory as well as partners in Indonesia, as Indonesian travel agencies are less internet-savvy than Singaporean agencies. Even the large Indonesian agencies have very poor websites.
5) What developments we can expect from Flocations in the coming months?
Thirty percent of our total traffic comes from the mobile phone. The nice part about mobile is that you can search quickly and make a call directly to the agency by hitting one call button so conversion is quite good. Furthermore, outside of Singapore, mobile is going to be the highest converting platform and therefore you will see some iOS and Android applications coming from Flocations shortly.
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