Interview: CheapOAir CEO on Bridging the Gap Between Booking Site and Travel Agent
Photo Credit: Sam Jain, the CEO of CheapOair's parent company, Fareportal, argues that it is leading the way in selling airlines' ancillary services during the initial booking process. Fareportal
Skift Take
Hotel site Getaroom.com tried to drive consumers from its Web site to a call centers for up-selling, but the much larger CheapOair is intent on doing both -- perfecting online booking and giving travelers that option, but also prodding them to phone agents in its company-owned call centers.
Editor's Note: Skift is publishing a series of interviews with online travel CEOs talking about the Future of Travel Booking, and the evolving habits and device preferences of travel consumers. Check out all the interviews as they come out here.
Sam Jain is the founder and CEO of Fareportal, which operates two online travel agencies, namely CheapOair, the largest company in the group, and OneTravel.
CheapOair, which is among the top five online travel agencies in the U.S., is a hybrid in that it not only offers online bookings, and has hundreds of engineers dabbling with every aspect of its Web page, but it also owns its own call centers, employing hundreds of agents, and publishes its toll-free number on every page.
Jain believes being a private company that has a small group of decision-makers is a competitive advantage, but on the other hand its hybrid model takes investment to scale. Skift spoke to Jain over dinner recently, and discussed CheapOair's strategic issues,
