“In our research, Generation Y and Generation Z didn’t know it was a mouse,” Barry said.
Under Barry, who was named CEO in June 2024, Webjet has a strategy to double the company’s total transactional value by 2030 and is trying to capture more travel spending by growing sales of hotel roams and tours and exploiting tech-enabled travel packages. Total transaction value in 2025 was $1.5 billion.
Australians have a preference for the Mediterranean, says Webjet’s CEO. Pictured: Navagio Bay, Zakynthos, Greece.Credit: iStock
To do that, Barry is seeking to change how customers use and think of Webjet, moving from a comparison site for flights to one that can combine disparate flights, hotels, insurance for one package.
The company is using AI to sift and compile travel segments that in the past would be difficult to combine. “So we’re creating what we would call a unique product that’s really hard to compare.”
Barry said a lot of online travel agencies had their birth in the dotcom era (in late 1990s and early 2000s) and catered to travellers in North America and Europe who could compare flights for point-to-point spanning a few weeks.
Wellington offers Australians a closer destination. Credit: Mlenny
At the time, Aussies and Kiwis booked extensive and expensive multi-stop tours to Asia, Europe and North America, relying on travel agents to manage the complexity. This slowed local innovation in multi-stop online-booked travel in Australia.
But demand remains firm. Investment bank Jarden last month noted that the Asia-Pacific region “achieved the second-highest growth in demand in July after Latin America”. The outlook could improve through 2026 “aided by potentially easing geopolitical impacts”
The Australian Travel Industry Association’s latest research showed that over 50 per cent of all travel is booked through an online travel agent, bricks and mortar office or in-person agency.
“That’s much higher than any other market in the world besides New Zealand,” said ATIA chief executive Dean Long.
“We do have a higher complexity in travel than, say, what you would consider in domestic Europe or domestic North America,” Long said.
Closer and cheaper during a cost of living crisis: Vietnam.Credit: Getty Images
Within that trend is an emerging younger demographic that is focused on using an online intermediary who can support them with their combined travel needs, he said.
Webjet’s Barry said that today, while travel agents “absolutely have a place” serving high-end clients, advances in technology and booking enable Webjet to sell entire travel packages consisting of differing legs, often determined by most competitive pricing, to customers online.
“Our market is the people who are digitally native, the people who want to self-service, and people who are looking for great value.”
Webjet’s new logo “go somewhere” also seeks to capture some of the post-COVID, Gen Z ethos of travel, in which people are pushed as much as pulled toward holiday.
“Ultimately, they just want to go somewhere,” Barry said.
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