Klook at 10: Expanding Beyond Travel Experiences

02.10.2024 - 13:59 / skift.com / Sean Oneill

As Klook celebrates its 10 anniversary this month, the online travel agency for experiences is undergoing a significant strategic evolution.

Klook is already Asia Pacific’s largest online seller of walking tours, cooking classes, Mario Kart tours through Tokyo’s streets, and other travel experiences. But now it’s expanding into domestic travel, social commerce, and seamless in-trip experiences.

“We want to build an app that consumers will use every time they need to go to travel,” said Eric Gnock Fah, president and co-founder. Over 80% of the company’s bookings go through its app.

Why it matters: Klook has raised more than $900 million in financing since its founding a decade ago this month. It has the firepower to shape expectations for buying travel during a trip in the world’s largest and fastest-growing region.

Skift spoke with Fah after he appeared on stage at the Skift Global Forum in New York City last month.

“Before Covid, we were 100% cross-border sales,” Fah said. But people don’t cross borders as often as they travel domestically. So Klook built up its domestic travel offerings, which now account for a “significant” portion of its business, Fah said.

Klook’s pivot from exclusively cross-border sales to a significant emphasis on domestic travel offerings marks a crucial adaptation to changing travel patterns in Asia Pacific. This shift not only diversifies the startup’s revenue streams but also increases its user engagement and frequency, potentially leading to stronger customer loyalty and recurring business.

The company is leveraging social media for marketing and sales. Klook attributes much of its growth in China in the past two years to social media-driven sales. Popular chat and payment apps increasingly let influencers sell services, making it easier for companies like Klook to know which creators are most effective and to partner with them.

Klook is tapping into the power of social proof and convenience, which could significantly expand its reach and conversion rates. Western travel brands may be eyeing the startup’s experiments for what’s to come as Western social platforms have been late to embed direct sales of services and to offer clear tools for marketers to attribute sales.

Rail, taxi, bus, and ferry transportation is an over $150 billion growth area in which Klook is often early in digitizing ticket sales.

Klook is streamlining in-trip services. Example: Users can now book Japanese bullet train (Shinkansen) tickets with a simple QR code scan, which up to a few weeks ago typically required a complex, on-the-ground interaction with a kiosk or sales agent.

Klook’s app helps visitors to a country book all the relevant transportation for their trip within it without having to