Decolar is returning to pre-Covid levels in Brazil, its main market, and plans to make more acquisitions in the country to diversify its revenues, said Alberto López Gaffney, vice president of the company, which is trying to capitalize on the resumption of one of the hardest-hit sectors. in the world by the pandemic.
“In domestic travel in Brazil we are currently at 90% of the pace of early 2020 and should reach 100% by the end of the year,” Gaffney said in an interview with Reuters.
The group based in Argentina, which presents itself as the largest online tourism platform in Latin America, has increased its stakes in the Brazilian market, responsible for a third of its revenues, as the increase in air ticket prices and the unequal flexibility of social isolation measures around the world has led tourists to seek closer destinations.
The level of occupancy of the aircraft has grown, even with the adjustments in the prices of airline tickets, given the pass-through of the increase in the prices of jet fuel, said Gaffney.
The report is consistent with more recent disclosures from airlines.
Gol reported last week that demand for its flights rose 113.9% in March from a year earlier, with the load factor of its aircraft rising nearly eight percentage points to 79.5%.
With the gradual improvement of the scenario, Decolar expects to have positive cash generation at the end of the year, he said.
After several quarters of consumption, in the last quarter of last year, Decolar stopped the cash flow, supported by a 134% year-on-year growth in revenues, to US$ 124.6 million.
To give traction to the resumption of revenues, Decolar has made some inorganic moves, while expanding its bets on services such as tickets to attractions, airport transfers, travel insurance and car rental.
In August 2020, the company agreed to purchase online installment solutions via Koin boleto. Earlier this year, it announced the acquisition of 51% of Stays, a vacation rental booking software that has a portfolio of 17,000 properties from Airbnb, Booking and Expedia.
“And there will certainly be non-organic expansion moves this year,” Gaffney said in an interview with Reuters.
More incisive moves by tourism companies towards having their own portfolio of vacation properties has been a result of the effects of the pandemic.
The Brazilian company CVC, for example, took over 100% of VHC’s home rental company last August, which recently announced a domestic expansion of operations in Brazil to Serra Gaúcha and, in the United States, to some destinations including the State of Alabama. .
At the same time that it takes advantage of opportunities created with the weakening of the hotel sector during the pandemic, the greater participation in the segment helps to offset for Decolar the more prolonged weakness of segments that should take longer to recover, such as international travel and maritime cruises.
“The cruise industry should be the last segment to fully recover, but we expect any negative impacts going forward to be smaller and smaller,” said Gaffney.
According to the executive, with the gradual reopening of activities in other parts of the world, the company has seen greater demand for travel to destinations such as Cancún and Punta Cana, in the Caribbean; Orlando and New York, in the United States; and Portugal, Spain and France, among the European destinations.
“Brazilian tourists have not changed their preferences because of the pandemic,” he concluded.
Source: CNN Brasil
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