Brazil's Travel Tech Scene Is Blossoming Despite the Pandemic
Skift Take
Brazil is fostering dozens of travel tech companies. Developing homegrown digital clout could help the country resist incursions from foreign heavyweights as it leans into a post-pandemic recovery.
Brazil is becoming a fertile ground for travel technology companies. The country has 219 businesses serving areas such as corporate travel, online travel, distribution, and business intelligence, according to a new report. Entrepreneurs founded most of these companies in the past seven years.
The country is setting itself up to become a travel tech hub in Latin America, similar to Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. These companies are making investments now to reap advantages in the post-pandemic future, playing the long game.
Brazil's travel tech companies are forecast to generate or service about $6 billion (35 billion reals) in gross travel volume in 2022, according to the São Paulo consultancy Loureiro Consultores, which has just published the most thorough look yet at Brazil's travel tech sector. The report builds on a rough-and-ready report blogged by corporate travel company Onfly a year ago.
Brazil's most robust category of travel tech companies appears to be in the "agency and online reservations" category, representing 29 percent of the total.
To be sure, global brands Booking.com, Expedia, and the Despegar-owned brand Decolar are major sellers of online travel in Brazil. Hurb (formerly Hotel Urbano) is a homegrown player, but it has a minority backing from Booking Holdings. Submarinoviagens is the online brand of established travel giant, CVC
