AirAsiaGo.com – The Only Travel Portal You’ll Need!

AirAsia was born 8 years ago and to-date has been known for their signature free seats. AirAsia launched it’s one-stop online travel portal AirAsiaGo.com on 25 May 2010 and gave away 3000 rooms on 26 May 2010 which was snapped up by around 2pm on the same day.

AirAsia launched a similar travel portal 5 years ago in August 2004, known as GoHoliday. Today it is rebranded as AirAsiaGo.com offering guests personalized and customized solution to the travel needs, as well as their budgets. Guests can now choose from a selection of over 70,000 hotels worldwide, and more than 5,000 tour packages with specialized activities ranging from music, theatre, diving, golf, spa & even adventure to suit everyone’s travel desire.

So, how different is AirAsiaGo.com from AirAsia.com?

AirAsia.com:
–          For flight bookings only
–          Guests are able to see all promotions for AirAsia flights via this site
–          And fares purchased online are exclusive, which means, if you walk into an AirAsia sales counter (such as Peninsula Plaza, Singapore), you will not get rates as low as the online rates.

AirAsiaGo.com:
– This is an online travel portal, offering bundled holiday packages – flights, hotels, tours, activities, ground transfer, car hire all in the same place
– Guests can get exclusive AirAsia rates on AirAsiaGo.com as well.

Kathleen Tan, Regional Head of Commercial, AirAsia Group said: “AirAsiaGo.com is the online travel portal for any traveler, and yes, we dare to claim so. It is clearly simple, as we offer the widest range and variety of hotels, tours and activities in the Asia region, coupled with ultimate convenience for guests as a one-stop online travel portal. The hectic lifestyle of the present generation has inspired us to ensure that convenience is of priority when developing AirAsiaGo.com. Guests can book AirAsia flights via the site with unbelievable low fares. Furthermore, its association with AirAsia, the World’s Best Low Cost Airline for 2010 by Skytrax which the airline received for the second consecutive year, our guest’s is assured that their online transactions and bookings are seamless and secured.”

“As travel demands change according to people’s lifestyle and trends, we see the need to adapt and innovate as well. We received 25.5 million unique visitors to our AirAsia.com site last month, with more than 65 million visits. The expansion of our holiday division, AirAsiaGo.com will now enable our AirAsia guests to personalize and customize their travel experience according to their preference and budget with the wide variance of services which includes car hire & transfers, golf packages, spa packages, adventure activities, and even access to sporting events such as the English Premier League and Formula 1 Grand Prix. The website has seen 30% – 50% growth in sales since we rebranded ourselves as AirAsiaGo.com with a new look and feel complimented with a greater variety of content offerings in February this year. And with this launch today, we are going to chart another milestone for the online travel agent industry, and take it by storm,” Kathleen concluded.

Features of AirAsiaGo.com

1. You have the flexibility to access AirAsiaGo.com in 6 different languages and you can pay in 16 different currencies.

2. Low Price guarantee

3. Guests will be able to review comments from fellow travelers via TripAdvisor upon selecting their hotel preferences and travel options. Guests can then make “informed” and “value-for-money” decisions.

4. Guests have a choice of over 70,000 hotels worldwide, and more than 5,000 tour packages with specialized activities ranging from music, theatre, diving, golf, spa & even adventure to suit everyone’s travel desire.

During the media conference held at Westin Kuala Lumpur, I was fortunate to have met interesting people. I took a flight on AirAsia from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and was pleasantly surprised with the experience. It was a short 1 hour hour flight but the journey from the Low Cost Carrier Terminal to Westin KL where the launch was held took around 2 hours! I shared the transport together with Malaysian blogger Kenny Sia who flew in from Kuching and exchanged blogging tips and experiences. I also met Indonesian blogger Trinity.

Had short conversations with Dato Sri Tony Fernandes and was very impressed by his humility, wit and candor.

Tony, Azran, Darren, Kathleen, Qastury, Daphne, Sam, William, Li Yen and Paul, thank you for your kind hospitality!

Slightly under a year later on 29 March 2011, AirAsia goes into a 50:50 Joint Venture with Expedia.

Below are some photos I took from the media launch.

(L to R) CEO, AirAsia Dato Sri Tony Fernandes, Malaysian blogger Kenny Sia, me & CEO, AirAsia X Azran Osman Rani