Whatever it buys though, CEO Robbie Cooke tells Yeoh Siew Hoon the group's collection of brands will stick to their respective knitting.

Robbie Cooke, CEO of The Wotif Group (right), sees opportunities for acquisition in the next 12 to 24 months and one of its interests is in the User Generated Content space.

"This area is still wide open in Asia and we see an opportunity to do it successfully. We could grow organically or we could make an acquisition but we haven't seen anything yet."

Any acquisition however must meet these criteria: It must be something the group's system and platform can enhance, it must be an online play, it must have no brick and mortar element, it must be in Asia Pacific, it must be in travel and it must be able to generate positive return on investment.

"I know, good luck, right? Well, if you hear of something, let us know," laughed Cooke.

Cooke has every reason to be laughing. His group, which comprises wotif.com, and the travel.com.au and Asia Web Direct businesses acquired in 2008, remains profitable. It recorded an A$20.6 million profit from July-December 2008, a 21% increase in performance.

Its room volume rose 37% to three million room nights and what's even more encouraging, says Cooke, is that room rates are still seeing growth even in these tough times. In January, the group saw a 1.2% rise in room rates and that month still saw volume growth.

Whatever acquisitions the group makes though, one thing is clear. Each of its brands will stay true to their respective positioning.

"Some sites are losing their unique positioning. With your brand and your customers, it is important to stay true to the reason they come to you."

He sees the group as a house of individual brands, all with their unique positioning. "Each of our brands have their own managers, competing against each other with different offerings and different features that cater to their different market segments.

"For example, with lastminute.com.au, the user is younger, more spontaneous in behaviour whereas with phuket.com or Bangkok.com, they are researching and dreaming about what they want to do."

And when you ask him if wotif.com would ever move to an advertising model, as some other OTAs have done, Cooke's answer is instant. "Never."

"We want to keep it clean. It's our shopfront. At the end of the day, we are a retailer and our customers are used to the way our shop is formatted and we don't want anything to distract the offering."

He also said that advertising "will not be a core business" for the group even though the Asia Web Direct businesses do carry display advertising.

And while some have criticised wotif.com's move to extend its booking window from 28 days to three months, saying it risked dilution of its core business model, Cooke said the move was to capture bookings it was losing as a result of the 28-day window.

"We were losing 10% of our customers and since we extended to three months, we have seen a 7.5% increase in volume. The only risk is what we may have done to sales – have we merely accelerated sales and moved them forward?"

And the extension couldn't have happened at a better time. With the soft market, hotels are willing to offer deals two to three months out. "We have seen strong uptake from our suppliers and strong customer acceptance."

www.webintravel.com - October 20-23, 2009 Suntec Convention Centre, Singapore