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| Aaron Price, Expedia's senior vice president of global marketing, speaks during a press conference in Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap |
By Kang Seung-woo
Travel company Expedia has introduced a new service that it believes will help Korean travelers save time and money on booking hotels.
The Expedia Add-On Advantage, introduced in the United States in June, offers customers hotel discounts of up to 51 percent if they purchase their plane ticket on the platform.
Marking the seventh anniversary of opening shop in Korea, the U.S.-based company held a press conference, Tuesday, with Aaron Price, its senior vice president of global marketing, and other executives participating.
Price said the new feature will help fulfill Korean travelers' desires.
"Around nine-and-a-half hours is the average time Korean travelers spend planning and booking a four-day trip," he said, adding that 30 percent spend more than 15 hours.
"In addition, Koreans pick reasonable price as extremely important when purchasing travel services."
According to an Expedia survey, 70 percent of Koreans chose price as the most important factor in their selection of tour programs.
"Eventually, the Expedia Add-On Advantage will enable customers to save money by unlocking great deals and discounts, as well save them time on researching these," he added.
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| Models advertise Expedia's new Add-On Advantage service during a press conference in Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap |
Travelers who want to save money with the new feature can simply book a flight or a flight and hotel package on its Korean website or mobile application, and after that, hotel discounts will be unlocked. They only have to book a hotel any time before their trip begins.
Meanwhile, given that more than 50 percent of bookings are made through mobile platforms in Korea, the company said it is closely monitoring feedback from Korean customers to better accommodate the increasing number of travelers using mobile transactions globally.
"At the end of last year, we made a decision to further focus on Korea and make it a key component in our mobile global strategy," said Gabriel Garcia, global head of Expedia's Mobile Apps Marketing.
For this, engineers and marketers came to Seoul earlier this year to learn about customer needs and find ways to design services for Koreans that can also be scaled up for global implementation, he added.
"We are designing and building our mobile app for Koreans and taking it from Korea to the rest of the world," Garcia said. "The growth we have seen in this market speaks for itself."
