Malaysia – AirAsia Group has appointed Allenie Caccam as its new head of business growth to bolster its market presence and growth trajectory. With a robust background in marketing leadership, Caccam brings a wealth of experience and strategic insight to her new role.
In an exclusive interview with MARKETECH APAC, Caccam discussed her vision, responsibilities, and plans for driving business growth at AirAsia Group.
Leveraging marketing leadership experience
In her new role, Caccam shared that her team will be responsible for supporting the establishment of business operations and the go-to-market strategy for new markets, targeting specific geographies for AirAsia Group. This involves project management from the initial sale phase through to the inaugural launch, working closely with cross-functional departments such as ground operations, network, route revenue, regulatory, communications, and marketing.
Additionally, her team is also tasked with identifying growth opportunities in terms of channel and customer.
“We are actively looking into new channels to support underserved markets for AirAsia and interline solutions to increase our reach and feed our Asia and Pacific network, where AirAsia is strong,” she explained.
Caccam believes that her extensive experience in marketing at AirAsia Philippines has equipped her with a strategic perspective vital for her new role.
“My marketing experience has trained me to strategically look into the different angles of the business and align our strategies with customer insights to determine maximum demand and revenue potential,” she said.
She also noted the crucial importance of the ability to commercialise a product in her role, ensuring the service is brought to market comprehensively through market research, distribution, promotion, customer support, and operation. For Caccam, this remains a vital skill in identifying growth opportunities and achieving successful implementation in the highly competitive airline industry.
Now, as she leads the go-to-market strategy for new market development, Caccam underscores her clear priorities for AirAsia Group.
“AirAsia’s tagline has always been ‘Now Everyone Can Fly’ and our strength has always been our broad network of over 130 destinations. Serving the underserved underpins our operations. Our focus is to not only fly the most popular routes but also bring in more passengers to our network from markets we are not yet serving or even where no other airline is serving, all the while making sure that it helps build the trade, economy, and tourism of both markets, which is a win-win for everyone,” she emphasised.
Adapting to the evolving travel landscape
Caccam foresees the evolving landscape of travel and tourism significantly impacting AirAsia’s growth strategy. She believes that travel will continue to be an integral part of people’s lifestyles, and as more channels emerge to offer customised travel experiences, the industry will become increasingly competitive.
“AirAsia will continue to harp on our strengths: our service, our network, our customer data built up over 20 years, and our affordable fares. We plan to use these huge assets to serve more underserved routes to connect Asia to the world,” Caccam said.
For Caccam, online channels are reaching maturity, particularly in Asian markets where digital is a top priority. Customers are rapidly transitioning to the generation of digital natives, and online media is no longer considered “new.”
“It is now a game of great raw content and relatability rather than glossy and hard-selling advertisements. In line with this, AirAsia will continue to produce relatable content through our social media channels and our own internal and external ambassadors and use these avenues to remarket our service,” she added.
“AirAsia’s tagline has always been, ‘Now Everyone Can Fly’ and with this role, I will be able to contribute more to making this vision a reality,” Caccam concluded.
