Air Asia and Expedia launch Backick.com, offering Facebook-driven travel discounts

The latest entrant in the online travel and hotel bookings space, backick.com is a rewards-based website that uses social-networking site Facebook to dole out discounts to users.

The site, which has launched in 11 Asia-Pacific countries (Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand  and Vietnam), claims to offer discounts of up to 80 per cent off of normal rates from an inventory of 100,000 hotels.

A user can earn "backicks" by sending friends discount coupons. For every friend that eventually joins and uses the site to book, the user accumulates more backick rewards that can be redeemed.

"From a value perspective, our discount coupons and cash savings make backick.com one of the most competitively priced hotel booking sites available," says Corrinne Koh, Head of Marketing, backick.com. 

On the marketing front, the company has been using videos on Facebook and YouTube to explain the concept to consumers. So far, since the site went live in May 2012, the site has garnerened more than 36,000 likes on its Facebook page. The company said exact booking figures were not available. 

Competition is increasing in the online travel industry as it continues to be a popular pick, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, where it's growing in double digits. Only last week Hotels.com launched Deals Facebook app.