Skyscanner sets sights on China expansion

UK-based travel search site, Skyscanner, which is owned by China's biggest online travel company, Ctrip, is looking to expand in China.

Skyscanner is understood to be planning to offer its United Kingdom staff subsidized trips to China, in order to encourage employees to come back with ideas on how the online travel company can grow its presence there.

Ctrip is the world's second-largest online travel agency. It bought Skyscanner for 1.4 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) in December 2016. Skyscanner employs 900 people in 10 offices in the UK, Europe, the United States, and Asia. Ctrip announced last year it will open a customer service call center in Edinburgh that will employ 200 people.

Gareth Williams, co-founder and chief executive of Skyscanner, told The Times newspaper he hopes workers will take up the travel offer during the coming year.

"We're encouraging our staff to visit China in 2018, subsidized by Skyscanner, and come back with ideas for our product," Williams said. "This had a great reception."

Williams said Skyscanner remains autonomous after its acquisition by Ctrip but has access to greater resources.

"I think staff would say the acquisition has helped us move faster as a business and has helped them do similarly in their role, whether that's through resource, talent or knowledge sharing," he said. "It's also proved an opportunity for learning and greater understanding of the unique Chinese travel market."

With China's middle class expanding and people's incomes growing quickly, Williams said he believes there is potential in the Chinese mainland as many more Chinese people become interested in, and able to afford, overseas travel.

Skyscanner has had a presence in China since 2012, when it opened a Beijing office and began a partnership with China's largest search engine Baidu. In 2012, it purchased Youbibi, a travel search engine company based in Shenzhen in Southeast China.

According to The Times, Skyscanner does not reveal its user numbers for countries but the company said the China market grew by 67 percent in 2015, the last year for which it provided a breakdown.

"The challenge of making something complex, like travel search, simple is a problem yet to be solved," Williams said. "For me, there's great motivation in that. Skyscanner's journey has a very long way to go yet."

boleung@mail.chinadailyuk.com