Happy Cooke in Chinatown

By Yeoh Siew Hoon

To get to Wotif’s offices in Pagoda Street in Singapore’s Chinatown, you have to fight your way throtugh a street bazaar. A man may offer to tailor you a suit, or someone might offer to sell you watches. Sometimes you get distracted by the cheap Chinese silk ties all screaming for you to take them home as souvenirs.

But I ignored all these that day as I was running late for a meeting with Robbie Cooke, CEO of Wotif Group who was in town for one of his fleeting visits to the region.

Cooke is seated in the boardroom, surrounded by computers and cables. He looks tired – he’s done three cities in three days or something like that – but he is beaming.

The reason? His group is expected to announce, at the end of the month, profit after tax for FY2009 of not less than A$42 million, 20% percent higher than FY2008’s total of $34.5 million.

It announced the profit upgrade on June 17 to the Australian Stock Exchange. “I think we surprised the market a bit,” said Cooke.

He admits it surprised him too, slightly. “We started off the year a bit nervous. Our model hadn’t gone through a recession so if you had asked me 12 months ago would we be profitable, I would not have been sure.

“But we’ve seen the model do well in a downturn.”

He attributes it to a couple of factors – the continuing migration of people to online and the continuing search for value in a downturn.

“It is not always about the cheapest price but people are looking for something extra. People are focused on how to save money.”

This drive has also swung business travellers Wotif’s way. “We have benefited from the corporate market. It has contracted for sure but people are still traveling and they are changing the way they travel.

“In the past, they had to go through their corporate travel agents but now they are told to get the best price and they are looking for the deal.

“Hopefully they will continue to use us when the market rebounds.”

Asked if the profit upgrade might also have been due to cost-cutting measures, Cooke said that “unlike some of the big American companies, we have always had a cost-conscious culture”.

“It’s part of our DNA, we are always focused on internal costs regardless of good or bad times.”

He said there had been no cuts made to people or processes. “We had no flab to cut. Yes, it is a tougher environment but we are still looking to grow and to hire people.”

Cooke said Wotif had increased its penetration in Asia – in the first half of the year, gross transactions in Asia totaled A$68 million. “We are catching up,” he said.

Its extension of the booking period from 28 days to three months is working and in fact, he believes the days of “you either have to be a last minute or longer booking model” are over.

“The lines are blurring. These days, you can do both. Hotels can still use longer booking models to distribute last minute inventory. I don’t believe that old boundary holds true anymore.”

Wotif is also about to launch an iPhone solution. “We had two choices – one was to build an application and the other a reskinned version. The first was more cumbersome, so we went for the second solution.”

Cooke believes the mobile solution will have more traction in Asia than in Australia and he sees it frequent travellers in the region using it more for transactions than for research and planning purposes.

Its acquired businesses – Asia Web Direct and travel.com.au – are also tracking well, he said.

“It’s been tougher with Asia Web Direct in Thailand due to the problems there but we have integrated the technology, kept the teams together and brought the two culture together.

“Remember, Asia Web Direct is bigger than Wotif so it was a question of bringing our guys into the fold.”

It has also launched a new flight booking engine on lastminute.com.au to improve the customer experience.

Asked if he believed the worst was over, Cooke said, “Australia has traveled a little better than I had expected – we have avoided the technical recession. The stock market always gets a bit ahead of itself – sentiment is always ahead of reality – but we are in a much better place than 12 months ago.

“I don’t think it will be V-shaped though, it will be two years before we see the levels we are used to.”

Yeoh Siew Hoon is the producer of Web in Travel – WIT 2009 – held alongside ITB Asia at the Suntec Convention Centre Singapore, October 20-23