Travellers probably won’t notice much, but Expedia Group now owns 100% of AAE Travel Pte Ltd. The travel company is a joint venture set up in March 2011. In 2015, Expedia Group raised their stake to 75%, with partner AirAsia Group Berhad holding 25%.
AirAsiaGo.com, which offers a full suite of travel products including AirAsia flight and hotel packages, will continue to be powered by Expedia Group. AirAsia Group will retain the AirAsiaGo.com domain names and related assets.
Mark Okerstrom, Expedia Group’s President and CEO, expressed satisfaction with the partnership and looks forward to further growth. He added that
….. Acquiring full ownership of AAE Travel reflects our belief in the immense potential for us in the over $485 billion Asian travel market. Mark Okerstrom
AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes, looks forward to continuing collaboration, especially in promoting regional and global distribution of AirAsia flights.
…. This sale represents the divestment of the last of our non-core investments from the previous round of joint ventures. These proceeds will be used to develop big unicorn products such as BigPay, Travel 360, Redbox Logistics and Ourshop. Tony Fernandes
He considers the first set of joint ventures a positive learning experience and had this message for shareholders…
….. shareholders who have seen huge returns from our first round of partnerships haven’t seen anything yet.
For travellers, it looks like there’ll be lots of new travel initiatives just round the corner.
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