Wotif.com Holdings chief executive Scott Blume and many other employees of the online travel agent will be departing the company as new owner Expedia undertakes a major restructure of the Australian online travel group.
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United States travel giant Expedia completed a $703 million takeover of Wotif in November and since then it has been reviewing its plans for the Australian company.
It is understood the job losses over the coming weeks will target its Asian operations and its local technology division in particular. In Asia, Wotif has offices in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
As of September, Wotif employed 620 people, including 170 technology staff in Sydney and Bangkok. A spokesman for Expedia declined to say how many employees would be leaving the business.
Mr Blume, who had remained in charge since the takeover, will exit the Brisbane-based company this week.
David Barnes, Wotif's chief commercial officer, will take charge of Wotif, but he will report to Expedia Australia and New Zealand managing director Georg Ruebensal.
Daniel Finch, who had previously headed the Asian business, will now lead the retail organisation for the Wotif and Lastminute brands in Australia and New Zealand.
Some other employees, such as chief information officer Janet Sutherland, had already departed in the wake of the Expedia takeover.
Expedia has revealed little about its plans for Wotif other than it plans to keep it as a standalone brand. But it has been undertaking other initiatives, such as moving the Wotif website to the Expedia platform.
In a farewell email to employees on Friday, Mr Blume said Wotif had last week added thousands more international hotels to the Wotif websites, giving them 365,000 properties to choose from around the globe.
"We'll continue to roll out more changes over the coming months to deliver a whole new world of travel to our customers," Mr Blume said.
Wotif was co-founded by Graeme Wood and Andrew Brice in 2000. Until last year, it was the largest online accommodation website in Australia.
However, Booking.com, owned by US group Priceline, overtook it in terms of nights booked due to heavy marketing spending and its ability to offer hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms around the world. Expedia was also eating into Wotif's market share before it made the takeover offer.
Priceline and Expedia dominate the global online hotel booking sector. Both charge higher commissions than Wotif, which has sparked concerns Wotif will raise its charges as a result of the Expedia deal. However, analysts said Wotif would have raised the commission rates if it had remained an independent company because its earnings were suffering.
Under Expedia's ownership, the Wotif website has already begun to be updated. The Wotif deal also gives Expedia access to Wotif's deep inventory of accommodation listings in Australia and New Zealand, particularly listings outside capital cities. Booking.com has been looking to sign up as many regional hotels as possible to offer as deep a domestic portfolio as Wotif.
