ASIA’S leading online tours and activities-platform provider KKday has just expanded in the Philippines due to its growth potential, particularly in trade and tourism industries.
“We look at the Philippines as one of the most promising markets in the region, especially for what we do—e-commerce and travel,” KKday Regional Executive Director for Southeast Asia Jim Chang told the BusinessMirror during the recent media launch of the Taiwan-based travel itinerary web site in Makati City.
He said the Philippines is among the leading markets for e-commerce, next only to other two member-states of the Asean—Singapore and Thailand—as seen in high-percentage rates of online purchasing, Internet penetration and credit-card coverage.
“Actually, a lot of big players from e-commerce are jumping into the Philippines, as well,” the top executive noted.
Tourism-wise, he considered the country as “the hub for travelers”, because of the connection it has with all the countries in the region, as well as the comparable price it offers given the many low-cost carriers and budget-friendly tours and hotel packages available unmatched by any other Asean nation.
What’s more, the number of Filipinos who travel abroad is “enormously bigger than the rest of their neighbors”, he said.
“So it’s a no-brainer for us to tap this potential market,” Chang said. “Considering all these factors, I think the Philippines is definitely a ‘must’ for us.”
KKday was incepted in 2014 and, since then, has established offices in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand. The Philippines is now the 10th market where it operates.
“When we started the company, we were thinking how much time we actually spent in the airplane or in a hotel,” recalled the regional executive director for Southeast Asia. “Worst-case scenario, [around] 25 percent. The rest of that—75 percent—is what KKday is going for. So our services provide everything—airlines, tickets and combination.”
At present, KKday.com has over 6,000 deals on tours and other attractions from 53 countries and 170 cities worldwide. It offers services ranging from transportation to tours, local cuisines and experiences, among others.
For over two years, this portal has quickly become the go-to site of travelers for their itineraries when touring overseas. On the average, it gains at least 1 million page views per month in terms of traffic globally.
Even prior to setting up their office in Manila in February 2017, the Philippines has already attracted foreign tourists using the platform, KKday Philippines Country Manager Joey Yusingco said.
The ball-park estimate, he said, would be from 70 percent to 80 percent of those using the web site in Taiwan and South Korea who have actually booked their tours and activities going here.
Given the growing interest of foreign tourists in the Philippines, Chang cited it’s the region’s third preferred destination being offered in their portal—again next only to Singapore and Thailand—with Boracay and Cebu as the most-visited spots.
With the recent launch of KKday.com in the country, it already has gained a following, from 2,000 to 3,000 local netizens.
“We expect it to go viral pretty soon. That’s why we’re inviting a lot of the travel communities and influencers,” Chang said.
While KKday has just started operating in the domestic market, Yusingco is upbeat the portal’s daily page views will reach as high as 5,000 to 10,000 once the business is fully settled by the second quarter of this year.
“Hopefully, out of such figures, we want to convert at least 1 percent to 2 percent a day,” he said of their target of around 50 to 100 closed transactions. “The other tech startups are doing probably 3 percent to 5 percent. So we are very conservative with our goal. And then we can slowly grow it from there.” Seeing KKday as an effective platform for tourism exchange, the country manager is expecting the portal to also help promote the Philippines globally.
“The direction we want for our other markets is to market our country heavily. Most of the people who come here in our country today are from Taiwan and Korea. The idea is to have an ecosystem of travelers all over Asia going to each other’s countries and helping each other’s economy grow. So, I guess, it’s very much in line with what the whole of Asia is trying to do,” he said.
To help push the country’s tourism industry further, KKday is boosting the 80 local tours and attractions to 1,000 by end-2017 to include also more off-the-track attractions beyond the usual top destinations, like Boracay, Palawan, Bohol, Cebu and Davao.
“Basically, we don’t only want to send Filipinos abroad,” Yusingco said. “We want, of course, to show the world how beautiful our country and the Filipino people are.”
Now that KKday has already made its presence felt in the Asean region, following its expansion here, the company is going further to Northeast Asia via Japan and South Korea. The firm is also keen on penetrating the Western markets, such as Australia and North America (mainly the US), by the third and fourth quarters of this year, respectively.
“That’s like experimental for us, as well. But our direct focus right now is to set foot, stand, stay and survive all the markets we have expanded in the first quarter of 2017, which is all over Southeast Asia. So we’re here to stay,” Chang said.
“Of course, in Northeast Asia, we want to put the cherry on top because we already have some good results from there and we want to make more out of that. So that is our game plan in the near future. We will be spending the most efforts there. Once we also get good results coming out of Australia and America, then we will dive right in with more resources,” he said.