Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Wotif.com Expands Into The Activity Market


We were interested to read today that the Wotif Group have announced that it plans to purchase Go Do Pty Ltd. 

GoDo operate a website that provides real time online bookings for activities and tours in Australia and New Zealand. Their websites www.godo.com.au and www.godo.co.nz  list aprox 1500 activities in Australia and a little under 200 activities in New Zealand. The database of bookable inventory is also available via a network of affiliate sites and third party distributors.

Products listed in the New Zealand section of the website includes jetboat rides, theme park passes, day spas, cooking classes, skydiving, hot air ballooning and V8 racing. 

The latest proposed purchase would appear to be part of wotif's master plan to expand into all areas of the tourism market by purchasing booking site acquisitions. Distribution channels for activities and tours are underdeveloped when compared to the accommodation market. When booking activities or tours there does not appear to be an obvious reselling brand that will attract the public to look and book online. It will be interesting to see if wotif can emulate its online accommodation dominance in this market. 

Last month wotif announced that they will be entering the air travel market and going head to head with Australian market leader Webjet. 

It is unclear how accommodation, flight reservations, activities and tours will be eventually presented to the public by wotif.com as bookable inventory. 

It will be interesting to see if this can be done on Wotif.com without losing the focus and definition of this popular accommodation site. 

Source: Click HERE

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