Latin America’s Despegar Wants to Double Bookings by 2025: How Realistic Is That?
Photo Credit: Despegar CEO Damián Scokin spoke at a company town hall in Buenos Aires in December 2019. Despegar
Skift Take
Despegar doesn't follow the same playbook as the global online travel players. Charting its own path has worked for the Latin American agency. Expect Despegar to make a strategic acquisition this year to support its heady plans for growth.
When you compete with larger players, you sometimes need to ignore the conventional wisdom if you want to avoid getting crushed. That’s the view of Despegar, an online travel agency in more than 20 Latin American countries.
Since he became Despegar CEO in 2017, Damián Scokin has charted a distinctive course. Scokin has ignored the playbook used by global online travel players whenever their methods haven't suited regional dynamics. He has improvised even though Expedia Group holds a 14 percent stake in the Argentine company.
Scokin believes his approach is paying off. Despegar forecasts growth. In December, executives predicted their company would double its annual gross bookings within five years.
Not everyone is as optimistic. After the presentation, Brian Nowak, managing director of research at Morgan Stanley, didn't change his model for the company, and his model assumes it will take Despegar longer than five years to double its bookings while also widening profitabilit
