Travel Search Engine Wego Labored in Asia but Found Its Footing in the Gulf States
Photo Credit: Co-founder and CEO Ross Veitch poses in front of a sign at the offices of Wego, a metasearch engine that debuted in Asia Pacific but is now focusing on the Middle East. Wego
Skift Take
Wego got its start in 2005. But it only found a path to scaling up recently when it shifted its focus from Asia to the Gulf States.
Despite its name, Wego never went far.
Founded in 2005 as Bezurk, Wego was similar in design to many travel price-comparison search companies launched around the same time.
Yet the Singapore-based company didn't grab an exit like Kayak, which the Priceline Group bought for $1.8 billion in 2013; or like Skyscanner, which Ctrip acquired for $1.74 billion in 2016; or even like Momondo, which Priceline bought for $550 million a year ago.
Wego competed with HotelsCombined to get traction in Southeast Asia but never struck gold.
"We were way too early with the metasearch model in southeast Asia," said co-founder and CEO Ross Veitch. "You need a critical mass of suppliers operating at scale to make the marketplace model work. We thought the market would develop faster than it did."
Veitch thinks Wego now has a path to scaling up after he and founder Craig Hewett pivoted the company to a mobile-first strategy in the Gulf States — a market relatively underserved by the global
