Latin America's Despegar Turns to Its Acquisitions for Pandemic Improvements
Skift Take
Like Traveloka in Indonesia, Argentina's Despegar is making strides in financial services. Amsterdam-based Booking.com is busy building a payments platform, and Grab Taxi in Southeast Asia has a lending and insurance arm. Megatrend, yes.
Despegar's increased negotiating power sourced from its October acquisition of Mexico travel agency Best Day as well as its purchase of fintech firm Koin a few months earlier paid off in contributing to fourth quarter strides.
Despegar, based in Argentina, indicated that joint supplier negotiations with Best Day helped improve its take rate, or commission level, to 13.3 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with 12.7 percent in the third quarter.
At the same time, like online travel agency Traveloka in Indonesia, Despegar has branched out into financial services through its August acquisition of Koin. Despegar has been active running Koin promotions through the online travel
