UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

 

FORM 20-F

 

 

 

☐	REGISTRATION STATEMENT PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(b) OR (g) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

OR

 

☒	ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018

OR

 

☐	TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

OR

 

☐	SHELL COMPANY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

Commission file number 001-38209

 

 

Despegar.com, Corp.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its charter)

 

 

N/A

(Translation of Registrant’s name into English)

British Virgin Islands

(Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization)

Juana Manso 999

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina C1107CBR

Telephone: +54 11 4894-3500

(Address of principal executive offices)

Juan Pablo Alvarado, General Counsel

Juana Manso 999

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina C1107CBR

Telephone: +54 11 4894-3500

(Name, Telephone, E-mail and/or Facsimile number and Address of Company Contact Person)

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Title of each class		Name of each exchange on which registered
Ordinary Shares, no par value		The New York Stock Exchange

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act:

None

 

 

Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the issuer’s classes of capital or common stock as of the close of the period covered by the annual report:

 

At December 31, 2018		69,235,699 ordinary shares

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

If this report is an annual or transition report, indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Note- Checking the box above will not relieve any registrant required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 from their obligations under those Sections.

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer or an emerging growth company. See definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

Large accelerated filer		☐		Accelerated filer		☒
Non-accelerated filer		☐		Emerging growth company		☒

If an emerging growth company that prepares its financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards† provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.  ☒

 

†	The term “new or revised financial accounting standard” refers to any update issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to its Accounting Standards Codification after April 5, 2012.

Indicate by check mark which basis of accounting the registrant has used to prepare the financial statements included in this filing:

 

U.S. GAAP  ☒		International Financial Reporting Standards as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board  ☐		Other  ☐

If “Other” has been checked in response to the previous question, indicate by check mark which financial statement item the registrant has elected to follow.

Item 17  ☐    Item 18  ☐

If this is an annual report, indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

				Page
PART I INTRODUCTION					1
ITEM 1.		IDENTITY OF DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND ADVISERS			3
ITEM 2.		OFFER STATISTICS AND EXPECTED TIMETABLE			3
ITEM 3.		KEY INFORMATION			3
A.		Selected Financial Data			3
B.		Capitalization and Indebtedness			6
C.		Reasons for the Offer and Use of Proceeds			6
D.		Risk Factors			7
ITEM 4.		INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY			33
A.		History and Development of the Company			33
B.		Business Overview			35
C.		Organizational Structure			52
D.		Property, Plants and Equipment			52
ITEM 4A.		UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS			53
ITEM 5.		OPERATING AND FINANCIAL REVIEW AND PROSPECTS			53
A.		Operating Results			53
B.		Liquidity and Capital Resources			70
C.		Research and Development, Patents and Licenses			73
D.		Trend Information			73
E.		Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements			75
F.		Tabular Disclosure of Contractual Obligations			76

 

1

G.		Safe Harbor			76
ITEM 6.		DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES			76
A.		Directors and Senior Management			76
B.		Compensation			80
C.		Board Practices			82
D.		Employees			83
E.		Share Ownership			83
ITEM 7.		MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS AND RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS			85
A.		Major Shareholders			85
B.		Related Party Transactions			86
C.		Interests of Experts and Counsel			89
ITEM 8.		FINANCIAL INFORMATION			89
A.		Consolidated Statements and Other Financial Information			89
B.		Significant Changes			90
ITEM 9.		THE OFFER AND LISTING			90
A.		Offer and Listing Details			90
B.		Plan of Distribution			91
C.		Markets			91
D.		Selling Shareholders			91
E.		Dilution			91
F.		Expenses of the Issue			91
ITEM 10.		ADDITIONAL INFORMATION			91
A.		Share Capital			91

 

2

B.		Memorandum and Articles of Association			91
C.		Material Contracts			91
D.		Exchange Controls			91
E.		Taxation			96
F.		Dividends and Paying Agents			99
G.		Statement by Experts			99
H.		Documents on Display			100
I.		Subsidiary Information			100
ITEM 11.		QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK			101
ITEM 12.		DESCRIPTION OF SECURITIES OTHER THAN EQUITY SECURITIES			101
A.		Debt Securities			101
B.		Warrants and Rights			101
C.		Other Securities			101
D.		American Depositary Shares			101
PART II					102
ITEM 13.		DEFAULTS, DIVIDEND ARREARAGES AND DELINQUENCIES			102
ITEM 14.		MATERIAL MODIFICATIONS TO THE RIGHTS OF SECURITY HOLDERS AND USE OF PROCEEDS			102
ITEM 15.		CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES			102
A.		Disclosure Controls and Procedures			102
B.		Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting			102
C.		Attestation Report of the Registered Public Accounting Firm			103
D.		Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting			103
ITEM 16.		[RESERVED]			103

 

3

ITEM 16A.		AUDIT COMMITTEE FINANCIAL EXPERT			103
ITEM 16B.		CODE OF ETHICS			103
ITEM 16C.		PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT FEES AND SERVICES			103
ITEM 16D.		EXEMPTIONS FROM THE LISTING STANDARDS FOR AUDIT COMMITTEES			104
ITEM 16E.		PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES BY THE ISSUER AND AFFILIATED PURCHASERS			104
ITEM 16F.		CHANGE IN REGISTRANT’S CERTIFYING ACCOUNTANT			104
ITEM 16G.		CORPORATE GOVERNANCE			104
ITEM 16H.		MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURE			110
PART III					110
ITEM 17.		FINANCIAL STATEMENTS			110
ITEM 18.		FINANCIAL STATEMENTS			110
ITEM 19.		EXHIBITS			111

 

4

PART I

INTRODUCTION

Unless the context suggests otherwise, references in this Annual Report to “Despegar,” the “Company,” “we” “us” and “our” are to Despegar.com, Corp., a business company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands (“BVI”), and its consolidated subsidiaries. Unless the context suggests otherwise, references to “Latin America” are to South America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean (except in the case of certain industry information from Euromonitor travel research for Latin America; as set forth below).

We were formed as a new business company in BVI on February 10, 2017. On May 3, 2017, the stockholders of our predecessor, Decolar.com, Inc., a Delaware corporation, exchanged their shares of Decolar.com, Inc. for ordinary shares of Despegar.com, Corp. to create a new BVI holding company. Following the exchange, our shareholders own shares of Despegar.com, Corp. and Decolar.com, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Despegar.com, Corp. The audited consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, and for the three years ended December 31, 2017 to the extent related to the events and periods prior to May 3, 2017, included in this Annual Report are the consolidated financial statements of Decolar.com, Inc., which is our predecessor for accounting purposes, and other information contained in this Annual Report related to events and periods prior to May 3, 2017 is based on Decolar.com, Inc.

Financial Statements

The financial information contained in this Annual Report derives from our audited consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2018 and 2017 and for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016. Our consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“U.S. GAAP”) and presented in dollars.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This Annual Report includes certain references to Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure. We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income / (loss) exclusive of financial income / (expense), income tax, depreciation, amortization and share-based compensation. See “Item 3. Key Information —A. Selected Financial Data — Other Financial and Operating Data” for a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net income / (loss). Adjusted EBITDA is not prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Accordingly, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this information and should note that Adjusted EBITDA, as calculated by us, may differ materially from similarly titled measures reported by other companies, including our competitors.

Market Data

This Annual Report includes industry, market and competitive position data and forecasts that we have derived from independent consultant reports, publicly available information, industry publications, official government information and other third-party sources, including Euromonitor International, and GSM Association, as well as our internal data and estimates. Independent consultant reports, industry publications and other published sources generally indicate that the information contained therein was obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Although we believe that this information is reliable, the information has not been independently verified by us.

All references to Euromonitor International across included in this Annual Report are sourced to Euromonitor International Limited, Travel 2019 edition, value sales. Latin America includes the following researched countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and 37 modelled countries. “Travel bookings” include airlines, car rentals, lodging and attractions. Also includes inbound arrivals, sales to residents and includes both corporate and leisure travel. “Online travel bookings” refer to Euromonitor International’s online travel sales to residents, which reflects TTV (total transaction value). This includes airlines, car rentals, lodging and attractions. Also includes inbound arrivals, sales to residents and both corporate and leisure travel.

Certain data included in this Annual Report related to the Latin American travel industry and the Latin American online travel market includes the purchase of hotel and other travel products (such as airlines, car rentals, lodging and attractions) by inbound travelers traveling to Latin America, as well as corporate travel. Our customer base, however, is primarily comprised of consumers from Latin America traveling for leisure domestically within their own country of origin, to other countries in the Latin American region, and outside of Latin America. Additionally, Euromonitor travel research for Latin America only includes the following countries: Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador. Market data related solely to the travel trends of Latin American consumers is limited. As a result, certain market data included in this Annual Report is being provided to investors to give a general sense of the trends of our industry but such market data does not capture the travel trends of only our targeted customers. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on the market information in this Annual Report.

Information sourced to Euromonitor is from independent industry research carried out by Euromonitor International Limited as part of its annual Passport research. Euromonitor makes no warranties about the fitness of this intelligence for investment decisions.

 

1

Certain Operating Measures

This Annual Report includes certain references to number of transactions and gross bookings, both operating measures. Number of transactions is the total number of customer orders completed on our platform during a given period. Gross bookings is the aggregate purchase price of all travel products booked by our customers through our platform during a given period. For more information, see “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—A. Operating Results — Key Business Metrics.”

Currency Presentation

In this Annual Report, references to “dollars” and “$” are to the currency of the United States, references to “Brazilian real,” “Brazilian reais” and “R$” are to the currency of Brazil and references to “Argentine pesos” and “AR$” are to the currency of Argentina. See “Item 10. Additional Information — Exchange Controls” for information regarding historical exchange rates of Brazilian reais and Argentine pesos to dollars.

Rounding

Certain figures included in this Annual Report have been subject to rounding adjustments. Accordingly, figures shown as totals in certain tables may not be exact arithmetic aggregations or percentages of the figures that precede them.

Trademarks

Our key trademarks are “Despegar.com,” “Decolar.com” and “Decolar.com.br.” Other trademarks or service marks appearing in this Annual Report are the property of their respective holders. Solely for the convenience of the reader, we refer to our brands in this Annual Report without the ^® symbol, but these references are not intended to indicate in any way that we will not assert our rights to these brands to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report includes forward-looking statements, principally under the captions “Item 3. Key Information,” “Item 4. Information on the Company––Business Overview” and “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects.” We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current beliefs, expectations and projections about future events and financial trends affecting our business and our market. Many important factors, in addition to those discussed elsewhere in this Annual Report, could cause our actual results to differ substantially from those anticipated in our forward-looking statements, including:

 

•

political, social and macroeconomic conditions in Latin America;

 

•

currency exchange rates and inflation;

 

•

current competition and the emergence of new market participants in our industry;

 

•

government regulation;

 

•

our expectations regarding the continued growth of internet usage and e-commerce in Latin America;

 

•

failure to maintain and enhance our brand recognition;

 

•

our ability to maintain and expand our supplier relationships;

 

•

our reliance on technology;

 

•

the growth in the usage of mobile devices and our ability to successfully monetize this usage;

 

•

our ability to attract, train and retain executives and other qualified employees;

 

•

our ability to successfully implement our growth strategies; and

 

•

the other factors discussed under the caption “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors” in this Annual Report.

We operate in a competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all risks and uncertainties that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report. The words “believe,” “may,” “should,” “aim,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “will,” “expect” and similar words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include information concerning our possible or assumed future results of operations, business strategies, capital expenditures, financing plans, competitive position, industry environment, potential growth opportunities, the effects of future regulation and the effects of competition. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly or to revise any forward-looking statements after we distribute this Annual Report because of new information, future events or other factors. In light of the

 

2

risks and uncertainties described above, the future events and circumstances discussed in this Annual Report might not occur or come into existence and forward-looking statements are thus not guarantees of future performance. Considering these limitations, you should not make any investment decision in reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report.

Additional Information

Our principal website address are www.despegar.com and www.decolar.com. The information on our websites should not be deemed to be part of this annual report. SEC also maintains a website at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding registrants that make electronic filings with SEC using its EDGAR system.

 

ITEM 1.

IDENTITY OF DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND ADVISERS

Not applicable.

 

ITEM 2.

OFFER STATISTICS AND EXPECTED TIMETABLE

Not applicable.

 

ITEM 3.

KEY INFORMATION

 

A.	Selected Financial Data

The following selected historical consolidated financial and other operating data should be read together with “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects” and our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report.

We derived the selected income statement and balance sheet data as of December 31, 2018 and 2017 and for the three years ended December 31, 2018 from our audited consolidated financial statements which are included elsewhere in this Annual Report. We derived the selected balance sheet data as of December 31, 2016 and 2015 and the selected Income Statement data for the year ended December 31, 2015 from our audited consolidated financial statements, which are not included in this Annual Report. Our consolidated financial statements are prepared and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP in dollars. Our historical results do not necessarily indicate results expected for any future period.

Selected Income Statement Data

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018				2017				2016				2015
		(in thousands, except per share data)
Revenue
Air		$	214,804			$	241,015			$	205,721				219,817
Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products			315,810				282,925				205,441				201,894
Total revenue			530,614				523,940				411,162				421,711
Cost of revenue			172,110				142,479				126,675				154,213
Gross profit			358,504				381,461				284,487				267,498
Operating expenses
Selling and marketing			174,357				166,288				121,466				170,149
General and administrative			67,240				72,626				64,683				78,181
Technology and product development			71,154				71,308				63,251				73,535
Impairment of long-lived assets			363				—				—				—
Total operating expenses			313,114				310,222				249,400				321,865
Operating income / (loss)			45,390				71,239				35,087				(54,367	)
Financial income			7,621				2,389				8,327				10,797
Financial expense			(26,788	)			(19,268	)			(15,079	)			(23,702	)
Income / (loss) before income taxes			26,223				54,360				28,335				(67,272	)
Income tax expense			7,069				11,994				10,538				18,004
Net income / (loss)		$	19,154			$	42,366			$	17,797				(85,276	)
Earnings per share:
Basic			0.28				0.69				0.30				(1.49	)
Diluted			0.27				0.69				0.30				(1.49	)
Weighted average shares outstanding:
Basic			69,154				61,457				58,518				57,078
Diluted			71,254				61,548				58,609				57,186

 

3

Selected Balance Sheet Data

 

		As of December 31,
		2018				2017				2016				2015
		(in thousands, except share data)
Cash and cash equivalents(1)		$	346,480			$	371,013			$	75,968				102,116
Total assets			763,947				738,694				353,710				348,215
Total liabilities			516,373				520,736				435,973				431,348
Total shareholders’ equity/(deficit) attributable to Despegar			247,574				217,958				(82,263	)			(83,133	)
Common stock			255,254				253,535				6				6
Number of Shares			69,235				69,097				58,518				58,518

 

(1)	Excludes restricted cash. See note 4 of our audited consolidated financial statements.

Other Financial and Operating Data

We regularly review the following key metrics to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends in our business, prepare financial projections and make strategic decisions.

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018				2017				2016				2015
		(in thousands)
Operational
Number of transactions
By country
Brazil			4,230				3,713				2,924				3,620
Argentina			2,378				2,264				1,798				1,787
Other			3,785				3,079				2,490				2,298
Total			10,393				9,056				7,212				7,705
By segment
Air			5,945				5,285				4,250				4,385
Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products			4,449				3,771				2,963				3,320
Total			10,393				9,056				7,212				7,705
Gross bookings		$	4,715,235			$	4,454,548			$	3,260,234				3,596,260
Financial
Adjusted EBITDA (unaudited)		$	67,329			$	89,354			$	48,585				(39,067	)

 

4

Number of Transactions

The number of transactions for a period is an operating measure that represents the total number of customer orders completed on our platform in such period. We monitor the total number of transactions, as well as the number of transactions in each of our segments and the number of transactions with customers in each of Brazil, Argentina and the other countries in which we operate. The number of transactions is an important metric because it is an indicator of the level of engagement with our customers and the scale of our business from period to period but, unlike gross bookings and our financial metrics, the number of transactions is independent of the average selling price of each transaction, which can be significantly influenced by fluctuations in currency exchange rates.

Gross Bookings

Gross bookings is an operating measure that represents the aggregate purchase price of all travel products booked by our customers through our platform during a given period. We generate substantially all of our revenue from commissions and other incentive payments paid by our suppliers and service fees paid by our customers for transactions through our platform, and, as a result, we monitor gross bookings as an important indicator of our ability to generate revenue.

Adjusted EBITDA

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income exclusive of financial income / (expense), income tax, depreciation, amortization and share-based compensation.

We believe that Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, provides useful supplemental information to investors about us and our results. Adjusted EBITDA is among the measures used by our management team to evaluate our financial and operating performance and make day-to-day financial and operating decisions. In addition, Adjusted EBITDA is frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other parties to evaluate companies in the online travel industry. We also believe that Adjusted EBITDA is helpful to investors because it provides additional information about trends in our core operating performance prior to considering the impact of capital structure, depreciation, amortization, and taxation on our results.

Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for other measures of financial performance reported in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical tool, including:

 

•

Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect changes in, including cash requirements for, our working capital needs or contractual commitments;

 

•

Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect our financial expenses, or the cash requirements to service interest or principal payments on our indebtedness, or interest income or other financial income;

 

•

Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect our income tax expense or the cash requirements to pay our income taxes;

 

•

although depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges, the assets being depreciated or amortized often will need to be replaced in the future, and Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect any cash requirements for these replacements;

 

•

although share-based compensation is a non-cash charge, Adjusted EBITDA does not consider the potentially dilutive impact of share-based compensation; and

 

•

other companies may calculate Adjusted EBITDA differently, limiting its usefulness as a comparative measure.

We compensate for the inherent limitations associated with using Adjusted EBITDA through disclosure of these limitations, presentation of our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP and reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure, net income.

 

5

The table below provides a reconciliation of our net income to Adjusted EBITDA:

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018				2017				2016				2015
		(in thousands)
Net income / (loss)		$	19,154			$	42,366			$	17,797			$	(85,276	)
Add (deduct):
Financial expense / (income), net			19,167				17,879				6,752				12,905
Income tax expense			7,069				11,994				10,538				18,004
Depreciation expense			5,348				5,075				5,089				5,152
Amortization of intangible assets			10,140				8,751				7,835				9,287
Share-based compensation expense			6,766				4,289				574				861
Adjusted EBITDA		$	67,644			$	89,354			$	48,585				(39,067	)

 

B.	Capitalization and Indebtedness

Not applicable.

 

C.	Reasons for the Offer and Use of Proceeds

Not applicable.

 

6

D.	Risk Factors

You should carefully consider the risks described below, in addition to the other information contained in this Annual Report. We also may face additional risks and uncertainties that are not presently known to us, or that as of the date of this Annual Report we deem immaterial, which may impair our business, financial condition and results of operations. If any of these events occur, the trading price of our ordinary shares could decline. In general, you take more risk when you invest in the securities of issuers with operations in emerging markets such as Latin American countries than when you invest in the securities of issuers in the United States and other developed markets. The information in this Risk Factors section includes forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of numerous factors, including those described in “Forward-Looking Statements.”

Risks Related to Our Business

We are subject to the risks generally associated with doing business in Latin America.

Our business serves the Latin American travel industry and substantially all of our revenue is derived from Latin American countries. Substantially all of our operations are located in Latin America. Moreover, we have significant revenue from Brazil and Argentina: in 2018, Brazil accounted for 41% of our transactions and Argentina accounted for 23%. As a result, we are subject to the risks generally associated with doing business in the region, including:

 

•

political, social and macroeconomic instability;

 

•

cycles of severe economic downturns;

 

•

currency devaluations and fluctuations;

 

•

periods of high inflation;

 

•

availability, quality and level of usage of the internet and e-commerce;

 

•

high levels of credit risk, fraud and lack of secure payment methods;

 

•

uncertainty or changes in governmental regulation, including applicable to travel services operations and internet and e-commerce services;

 

•

uncertainty or changes in tax laws and regulations;

 

•

limited access to financing, both for companies and for consumers;

 

•

exchange and capital controls;

 

•

limited infrastructure, including in the travel and technology sectors;

 

•

adverse labor conditions and difficulties in hiring, training and retaining qualified personnel;

 

•

the challenges of doing business across a region with multiple languages, different currencies and regulatory regimes that varies from country to country; and

 

•

the impact of adverse global conditions in the region.

Any of these risks could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. For more information, see “—Risks Related to Latin America.”

General declines or disruptions in the travel industry may adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Our business is significantly affected by the trends that occur in the travel industry. As the travel industry is highly sensitive to business and personal discretionary spending levels, it tends to decline during general economic downturns. Trends or events that tend to reduce travel and are likely to reduce our revenue include:

 

•

terrorist attacks or threats of terrorist attacks or wars;

 

•

fluctuations in currency exchange rates;

 

•

health-related risks, such as an outbreak of the Zika virus, H1N1 influenza, Ebola virus, yellow fever, avian flu or any other serious contagious diseases;

 

•

increased prices in the airline ticketing, hotel, or other travel-related sectors;

 

•

significant changes in oil prices;

 

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travel-related strikes or labor unrest, bankruptcies or liquidations;

 

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travel-related accidents or the grounding of aircraft due to safety or other concerns;

 

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political unrest;

 

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high levels of crime;

 

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natural disasters or severe weather conditions, including volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, flooding or earthquakes;

 

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changes in immigration policy; and

 

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travel restrictions or other security procedures implemented in connection with any major events, particularly those that affect travel by Latin Americans within their respective countries, across the region and outbound from the region to the rest of the world.

We could be severely and adversely affected by declines or disruptions in the travel industry and, in many cases, have little or no control over the occurrence of such events. Such events could result in a decrease in demand for our travel services. Any decrease in demand, depending on the scope and duration, could significantly and adversely affect our business and financial performance over the short and long term.

Our business and results of operations may be adversely affected by macroeconomic conditions.

Consumer purchases of discretionary items generally decline during periods of recession and other periods in which disposable income is adversely affected. As a substantial portion of travel expenditure, for both business and leisure, is discretionary, the travel industry tends to experience weak or reduced demand during economic downturns.

General adverse economic conditions, including the possibility of recessionary conditions in Latin America or a worldwide economic slowdown, would adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. Past weakness and uncertainty in the global economy and in Latin America have negatively impacted consumer spending patterns and demand for travel services and may continue to do so in the future. For example, consumer spending patterns and demand for travel services were negatively impacted by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis that arose in the United States, as well as the recession in Brazil of 2015-2016 and the Argentine financial crisis of 2001-2002 and recession of 2018.

As an intermediary in the travel industry, a significant portion of our revenue is affected by prices charged by our travel suppliers. During periods of poor economic conditions, airlines and hotels tend to reduce rates or offer discounted sales to stimulate demand, thereby reducing our commission-based income. A slowdown in economic conditions may also result in a decrease in transaction volumes and adversely affect our revenue, including our consumer fee-based income. It is difficult to predict the effects of the uncertainty in global economic conditions. If economic conditions decline globally or in Latin America, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely impacted.

We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates.

Because we conduct our business outside the United States and receive almost all of our revenue in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, but report our results in dollars, we face exposure to adverse movements in currency exchange rates. The currencies of certain countries where we operate, including Brazil and Argentina, have historically experienced significant devaluations. For example, in December 2015, the Argentine government let the Argentine peso float freely, after several years of controlling foreign exchange rates, resulting in a significant devaluation. In addition, the Brazilian Real and the Argentine peso have experienced weakness during 2017 and 2018. The results of operations in the countries where we operate are exposed to foreign exchange rate fluctuations as the financial results of the applicable subsidiaries are translated from the local currency into dollars upon consolidation. If the dollar weakens against foreign currencies, the translation of these foreign-currency-denominated transactions will typically result in increased revenue and operating expenses, and our revenue and operating expenses will typically decrease if the dollar strengthens. Moreover, if the dollar strengthens against the foreign currencies of countries in which we operate, the purchasing power of our customers from those countries could be negatively affected by potentially increased prices in local currencies, and we could experience a reduction in the demand for our travel services.

Additionally, foreign exchange exposure also arises from pre-pay transactions, where we accept upfront payments for bookings in the customer’s home currency, but payment to the hotel is not due until after the customer checks out, and is paid by us in the hotel’s home currency. We are therefore exposed to foreign exchange risk between the time of the initial reservation and the time when the hotel is paid.

 

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We minimize our foreign currency exposures by managing natural hedges, netting our current assets and current liabilities in similarly denominated foreign currencies, and managing short term loans and investments for hedging purposes. Additionally, from time to time we enter into derivative transactions. However, depending on the size of the exposures and the relative movements of exchange rates, if we choose not to hedge or fail to hedge effectively our exposure, we could experience a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial statements and financial condition.

We have incurred operating losses in the past and may experience earnings declines or net losses in the future.

We have incurred operating losses in the past, though in the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016 we had net income. We cannot assure you that we can sustain profitability or avoid net losses in the future. Our ability to remain profitable depends on various factors, including our ability to generate additional transaction volume and revenue and control our costs and expenses. We may incur significant losses in the future for a number of reasons, including the other risks described in this Annual Report, and we may further encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown events. If our costs and expenses increase at a more rapid rate than our revenue, we may not be able to sustain profitability and may incur losses.

If we are unable to maintain or increase consumer traffic to our sites and our conversion rates, our business and results of operations would be harmed.

Our ability to generate revenue depends, in part, on our ability to attract consumers to our platform. If we fail to maintain or increase consumer traffic and our conversion rates, our ability to grow our revenue could be negatively affected. We expect that our efforts to maintain or increase traffic are likely to include, among other things, significant increases to our marketing expenditures. We cannot assure you that any increases in our expenses will be successful in generating additional consumer traffic.

There are many factors that could negatively affect user retention, growth, and engagement, including if:

 

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we fail to offer compelling products;

 

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users increasingly engage with competing products instead of ours;

 

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we fail to introduce new and exciting products and services or those we introduce are poorly received;

 

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our websites or mobile apps fail to operate effectively on the iOS and Android mobile operating systems;

 

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we do not provide a compelling user experience;

 

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we are unable to combat spam or other hostile or inappropriate usage on our products, or if our anti-fraud measures are too conservative and we reject too many bona fide transactions;

 

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there are changes in user sentiment about the quality or usefulness of our existing products;

 

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there are concerns about the privacy implications, safety, or security of our products;

 

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our suppliers decide to discontinue the offering of their products through our platform;

 

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technical or other problems frustrate the user experience, particularly if those problems prevent us from delivering our products in a fast and reliable manner;

 

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we fail to provide adequate service to our customers and suppliers;

 

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we or other companies in our industry are the subject of adverse media reports or other negative publicity; or

 

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we do not maintain our brand image or our reputation is damaged.

Any decrease to user retention, growth, or engagement could render our products less attractive to consumers and would seriously harm our business.

We operate in a highly competitive and evolving market, and pressure from existing and new companies may adversely affect our business and results of operations.

The travel market in Latin America and worldwide is intensely competitive and rapidly evolving. Factors affecting our competitive success include, among other things, price, availability and breadth of choice of travel services and products, brand recognition, customer service, fees charged to travelers, ease of use, accessibility, consumer payment options and reliability. We currently compete with both established and emerging providers of travel services and products, including regional offline travel agency chains and tour operators, global OTAs with presence in Latin America and smaller, country-specific online and offline travel agencies and tour operators. In addition, our customers have the option to book travel directly with airlines, hotels and other travel service providers who are increasingly focused on further refining their online offerings. Large, established internet search engines have also launched

 

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applications offering travel itineraries in destinations around the world, and meta-search companies who can aggregate travel search results also compete against us for customers. In addition, we face price competition from new entrants that offer discounted rates and other incentives from time to time, as well as social media channels that market travel products and experiences. Some of our competitors have significantly greater financial and other resources than us. From time to time we may be required to reduce service fees and revenue margins in order to compete effectively and maintain or gain customers, brand awareness and supplier relationships.

Further, we may also face increased competition from new entrants in our industry. We cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully compete against existing or new competitors. If we are not able to compete effectively, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.

Some travel suppliers are seeking to decrease their reliance on distribution intermediaries like us by promoting direct distribution channels. Many airlines, hotels, car rental companies and tour operators have call centers and have established their own travel distribution websites and mobile applications. From time to time, travel suppliers offer advantages, such as bonus loyalty awards and lower transaction fees or discounted prices, when their services and products are purchased from supplier-related channels. We also compete with competitors which may offer less content, functionality and marketing reach but at a relatively lower cost to suppliers. If our access to supplier-provided content or features were to be diminished either relative to our competitors or in absolute terms or if we are unable to compete effectively with travel supplier-related channels or other competitors, our business could be materially and adversely affected.

If we are unable to maintain existing, and establish new, arrangements with travel suppliers, our business may be adversely affected.

Our business is dependent on our ability to maintain our relationships and arrangements with existing suppliers, such as airlines, global distribution system (“GDS”), service providers, hotels, hotel consolidators and destination services companies, car rental companies, bus operators, cruise companies and travel assistance providers, as well as our ability to establish and maintain relationships with new travel suppliers. In addition, the hotel and other lodging products that we offer through our platform for all countries outside Latin America are provided to us exclusively by affiliates of Expedia and Expedia is the preferred provider to us of hotel and other lodging products in Latin America pursuant to a lodging outsourcing agreement (the “Expedia Outsourcing Agreement”). In the event the Expedia Outsourcing Agreement is terminated, we may be required to pay a $125.0 million termination fee. For more information on our relationships with Expedia, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions — B. Related Party — Relationship with Expedia.” Adverse changes in key arrangements with our suppliers, including an inability of any key travel supplier to fulfill its payment obligation to us in a timely manner, increasing industry consolidation or our inability to enter into or renew arrangements with these parties on favorable terms, if at all, could reduce the amount, quality, pricing and breadth of the travel services and products that we are able to offer, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. For example, American Airlines discontinued our access to its inventory from July 2013 to March 2016, until a mutually satisfactory settlement was reached and American Airlines resumed supplying us with airline tickets.

In addition, adverse economic developments affecting the travel industry could also adversely impact our ability to maintain our existing relationships and arrangements with one or more of our suppliers. We cannot assure you that our agreements or arrangements with our travel suppliers or travel-related service providers will continue or that our travel suppliers or travel-related service providers will not further reduce commissions, terminate our contracts, make their products or services unavailable to us as part of exclusive arrangements with our competitors or default on or dispute their payment or other obligations towards us, any of which could reduce our revenue and margins or may require us to initiate legal or arbitral proceedings to enforce their contractual payment obligations, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on the value of our brands, and any failure to maintain or enhance consumer awareness of our brands could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We believe continued investment in our brand is critical to retain and expand our business. We have invested in developing and promoting our brand since our inception and expect to continue to spend on maintaining the value of our brands to enable us to compete against increased spending by competitors and to allow us to expand into new services or increase our penetration in certain markets where our brands are less well known.

We cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully maintain or enhance consumer awareness of our brands. Even if we are successful in our branding efforts, such efforts may not be cost-effective. Our marketing costs may also increase as a result of inflation in media pricing. If we are unable to maintain or enhance consumer awareness of our brands and generate demand in a cost-effective manner, it would negatively impact our ability to compete in the travel industry and would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

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We rely on information technology to operate our business and maintain our competitiveness, and any failure to adapt to technological developments or industry trends could adversely affect our business.

We depend on the use of sophisticated information technology and systems, for search and reservation for airline tickets, hotels, and any of the other products that we offer on our platform, as well as payments, refunds, customer relationship management, communications and administration. As our operations grow in both size and scope, we must continuously improve and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to improve services, features and functionality, while maintaining the reliability and integrity of our systems and infrastructure in a cost-effective manner. Our future success also depends on our ability to upgrade our services and infrastructure ahead of rapidly evolving consumer demands while continuing to improve the performance, features and reliability of our service in response to competitive offerings.

We may not be able to maintain or replace our existing systems or introduce new technologies and systems as quickly as our competitors, in a cost-effective manner or at all. We may also be unable to devote adequate financial resources to develop or acquire new technologies and systems in the future.

We may not be able to use new technologies effectively, or we may fail to adapt our websites, mobile apps, transaction processing systems and network infrastructure to meet consumer requirements or emerging industry standards, comply with government regulation or prevent fraud or security breaches. If we face material delays in introducing new or enhanced solutions, our customers may forego the use of our services in favor of those of our competitors. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Some of our airline suppliers (including our GDS service providers) may reduce or eliminate the commission and other compensation they pay to us for the sale of airline tickets and this could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

In our air business, we generate revenue through commissions and incentive payments from airline suppliers (including our GDS service providers) and service fees charged to our customers. Our airline suppliers (including our GDS service providers) may reduce or eliminate the commissions, incentive payments or other compensation they pay to us. To the extent any of our airline suppliers (including our GDS service providers) reduce or eliminate the commissions, incentive payments or other compensation they pay to us, our revenue may be reduced unless we are able to adequately mitigate such reduction by increasing the service fee we charge to our customers or increasing our transaction volume in a sustainable manner. However, any increase in service fees may also result in a loss of potential customers. In addition, our arrangement with the airlines that supply airline tickets to us may limit the amount of service fee that we are able to charge our customers. Our business would also be negatively impacted if competition or regulation in the Latin American travel industry causes us to have to reduce or eliminate our service fees.

Our business and results of operations could be adversely affected if one or more of our major travel suppliers suffers a deterioration in its financial condition or restructures its operations.

As we are an intermediary in the travel industry, a substantial portion of our revenue is affected by the prices charged by our suppliers, including airlines, GDS service providers, hotels, destination service providers, car rental suppliers, tour operators, supply aggregators (such as other OTAs), cruise operators, bus service providers and travel assistance providers, and the volume of products offered by our suppliers. As a result, if one or more of our major suppliers suffers a deterioration in its financial condition or restructures its operations, it could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Accordingly, our business may be negatively affected by adverse changes in the markets in which our suppliers operate.

In particular, as a substantial portion of our revenue depends on our sales of airline flights, we could be adversely affected by changes in the airline industry, including consolidation or bankruptcies and liquidations, and in many cases, we will have no control over such changes. Any consolidation in the airline industry in the future would result in fewer airlines with potentially more bargaining power with respect to the commissions and incentive payments or other fees they pay to intermediaries. Events or weaknesses specific to the airline industry that could negatively affect our business include air fare fluctuations, airport, airspace and landing fee increases, seat capacity constraints, removal of destinations or flight routes, travel-related strikes or labor unrest, imposition of taxes or surcharges by regulatory authorities and fuel price volatility. While decreases in prices for flights and other travel products generally increase demand, such price decreases generally also have a negative effect on the commissions we earn, particularly in our non-flight business, which is more dependent on commissions than our flight business. The overall effect of a price increase or decrease is therefore uncertain.

In the past, major airlines have filed for bankruptcy, exited bankruptcy, or discussed publicly the risk of bankruptcy. In addition, some of these and other airlines have merged, or discussed merging, with other airlines. If one of our major airline suppliers merges or consolidates with, or is acquired by, another company that either does not participate in the GDS systems we use, or that participates in such systems but at substantially lower levels, the surviving company may elect not to make supply available to us or may elect to do so at lower levels than the previous supplier. Similarly, in the event that one of our major airline suppliers voluntarily or

 

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involuntarily declares bankruptcy and is subsequently unable to successfully emerge from bankruptcy, and we are unable to replace such supplier, our business would be adversely affected. Further consolidation of one or more of the major airlines could result in further capacity reductions, a reduction in the number of airline tickets available for booking on our website and increased air fares, which may have a negative impact on demand for travel products.

We are subject to payments-related fraud risks.

We are held liable for accepting fraudulent bookings on our platform and other bookings for which payment is successfully disputed by the cardholder, both of which lead to the reversal of payments received by us for such bookings (referred to as a “chargeback”). Our results of operations may be negatively affected by our acceptance of fraudulent bookings made using credit cards, as occurred in 2015, when there was an increase in fraud in the Latin American travel industry, particularly in Brazil. In the fourth quarter of 2015, we experienced an increase in attempted fraudulent transactions in Brazil, resulting in both the first quarter of 2016 and the fourth quarter of 2015 in an increase in fraud expense in the form of chargebacks. We also experienced a decrease in gross bookings in both quarters, as we imposed more restrictive anti-fraud protocol in response to the uptick in fraudulent transactions that resulted in more rejections of legitimate transactions. Our ability to detect and combat fraud, which has become increasingly common and sophisticated, may be negatively impacted by the adoption of new payment methods, the emergence and innovation of new technology platforms, including smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, and our expansion, including into geographies with a history of elevated fraudulent activity. If we are unable to effectively combat fraud on our platform or if we otherwise experience increased levels of chargebacks, our results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

We have agreements with companies that process customer credit and debit card transactions for the facilitation of customer bookings of travel services from our travel suppliers. These agreements allow these processing companies, under certain conditions, to hold an amount of our cash (referred to as a “holdback”) or require us to otherwise post security equal to a portion of bookings that have been processed by such companies. These processing companies may be entitled to a holdback or suspension of processing services upon the occurrence of specified events, including material adverse changes in our financial condition. Moreover, there can be no assurances that the rates we pay for the processing of customer credit and debit card transactions will not increase, which could reduce our revenue thereby adversely affecting our business and financial performance.

Moreover, credit card networks, such as Visa and MasterCard, have adopted rules and regulations that apply to all merchants which process and accept credit cards and include the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (“PCI DSS”). Under these rules, we are required to adopt and implement internal controls over the use, storage and security of card data. We are currently PCI DSS certified and in compliance with PCI DSS. We assess our compliance with PCI DSS rules on a periodic basis and make necessary improvements to our internal controls as needed. Failure to comply may prevent us from processing or accepting credit cards.

In addition, when onboarding suppliers to our platform, we may fail to identify falsified or stolen supplier credentials, which may result in fraudulent bookings or unauthorized access to personal or confidential information of users of our websites and mobile applications. A fraudulent supplier scheme could also result in negative publicity and damage to our reputation, and could cause users of our websites and mobile applications to lose confidence in the quality of our services. Any of these events would have a negative effect on the value of our brands, which could have an adverse impact on our financial performance.

Any system interruption, security breaches or lack of sufficient redundancy in our information systems may harm our businesses.

We rely on information technology systems, including the internet and third-party hosted services, to support a variety of business processes including booking transactions, and activities and to store sensitive data, including our proprietary business information and that of our suppliers, personally identifiable information and other information of our customers and employees and data with respect to invoicing and the collection of payments, accounting and procurement activities. In addition, we rely on our information technology systems to process financial information and results of operations for internal reporting purposes and to comply with financial reporting, legal, and tax requirements. The risk of a cybersecurity-related attack, intrusion, or disruption, including by criminal organizations, hacktivists, foreign governments, and terrorists, is persistent. We have experienced and may in the future experience system interruptions that make some or all of these systems unavailable or prevent us from efficiently fulfilling orders or providing services to third parties. Interruptions of this nature could include security intrusions and attacks on our systems for fraud or service interruption. Significant interruptions, outages or delays in our internal systems, or systems of third parties that we rely upon—including multiple co-location providers for data centers, cloud computing providers for application hosting, and network access providers—and network access, or deterioration in the performance of such systems, would impair our ability to process transactions, decrease our quality of service that we can offer to our customers, damage our reputation and brands, increase our costs and/or cause losses.

 

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Potential security breaches to our systems or the systems of our service providers, whether resulting from internal or external sources, could significantly harm our business. We devote significant resources to network security, monitoring and testing, employee training, and other security measures, but we cannot assure you that these measures will prevent all possible security breaches or attacks. A party, whether internal or external, that is able to circumvent our security systems could misappropriate customer or employee information, proprietary information or other business and financial data or cause significant interruptions in our operations. We may need to expend significant resources to protect against security breaches or to address problems caused by breaches, and reductions in website availability could cause a loss of substantial business volume during the occurrence of any such incident. Because the techniques used to sabotage security change frequently, often are not recognized until launched against a target and may originate from less regulated and remote areas around the world, we may be unable to proactively address these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures. We have obtained cyber insurance, however we cannot assure you that our insurance will be sufficient to protect against our losses or will cover all potential incidents. Moreover, security breaches could result in negative publicity and damage to our reputation, exposure to risk of loss or litigation and possible liability due to regulatory penalties and sanctions or pursuant to our contractual arrangements with payment card processors for associated expenses and penalties. Security breaches could also cause customers and potential users and our suppliers to lose confidence in our security, which would have a negative effect on the value of our brands. Failure to adequately protect against attacks or intrusions, whether for our own systems or those of our suppliers, could expose us to security breaches that could have an adverse impact on our financial performance. For example, in 2014, hackers breached our system security and accessed credit card information from customers who had made purchases through our platform, representing approximately 663,000 unique credit card numbers.

In addition, we cannot assure you that our backup systems or contingency plans will sustain critical aspects of our operations or business processes in all circumstances, many other systems are not fully redundant and our disaster recovery or business continuity planning may not be sufficient. Fire, flood, power loss, telecommunications failure, break-ins, earthquakes, acts of war or terrorism, acts of God, computer viruses, electronic intrusion attempts from both external and internal sources and similar events or disruptions may damage or impact or interrupt computer or communications systems or business processes at any time. Although we have put measures in place to protect certain portions of our facilities and assets, any of these events could cause system interruption, delays and loss of critical data, and could prevent us from providing services to our customers and/or third parties for a significant period of time. Remediation may be costly and we may not have adequate insurance to cover such costs. Moreover, the costs of enhancing infrastructure to attain improved stability and redundancy may be time consuming and expensive and may require resources and expertise that are difficult to obtain.

Our ability to attract, train and retain executives and other qualified employees, particularly highly-skilled IT professionals, is critical to our business and future growth.

Our business and future success is substantially dependent on the continued services and performance of our key executives, senior management and skilled personnel, particularly personnel with experience in our industry and our information technology and systems. Any of these individuals may choose to terminate their employment with us at any time and we cannot assure you that we will be able to retain these employees or find adequate replacements, if at all. The specialized skills we require can be difficult, time-consuming and expensive to acquire and/or develop and, as a result, these skills are often in short supply. A lengthy period of time may be required to hire and train replacement personnel when skilled personnel depart our company. Our ability to compete effectively depends on our ability to attract new employees and to retain and motivate our existing employees. We may be required to increase our levels of employee compensation more rapidly than in the past to remain competitive in attracting the quality of employees that our business requires. Competition for these personnel is intense, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully attract, integrate, train, retain, motivate and manage sufficiently qualified personnel. If we do not succeed in attracting well-qualified employees or retaining or motivating existing employees, our business and prospects for growth could be adversely affected.

In addition, we compete for talented individuals not only with other companies in our industry but also with companies in other industries, such as software services, engineering services and financial services companies, among others, and there is a limited pool of individuals who have the skills and training needed to help us grow our company. High attrition rates of qualified personnel could have an adverse effect on our ability to expand our business, as well as cause us to incur greater personnel expenses and training costs.

Moreover, while we sometimes require our senior management to sign non-compete agreements, typically for a period of one year following termination, we cannot assure you that our former employees will not compete with us in the future. In addition, these non-compete agreements may be difficult to enforce in certain Latin-American jurisdictions.

 

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We rely on third-party systems and service providers and any disruption or adverse change in their businesses could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We currently rely on a variety of third-party systems, service providers and software companies, including the GDS and other electronic central reservation systems used by airlines, various channel managing systems and reservation systems used by other suppliers, as well as other technologies used by payment gateway providers. In particular, we rely on third parties for:

 

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the hosting of our websites;

 

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certain software underlying our technology platform;

 

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transportation ticketing agencies to issue transportation tickets and travel assistance products, confirmations and deliveries;

 

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third-party local tour operators to deliver on-site services to our packaged-tour customers;

 

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assistance in conducting searches for airfares and process air ticket bookings;

 

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processing hotel reservations for hotels not connected to our management system;

 

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processing credit card, debit card and net banking payments;

 

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providing computer infrastructure critical to our business; and

 

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providing customer relationship management (CRM) services.

Any interruption or deterioration in performance of these third-party systems and services could have a material adverse effect on our business. Further, the information provided to us by certain of these third-party systems may not always be accurate due to either technical glitches or human error, and we may incur monetary and/or reputational loss as a result.

Our success is also dependent on our ability to maintain our relationships with these third-party systems and service providers. In the event our arrangements with any of these third parties are impaired or terminated, we may not be able to find an adequate alternative source of systems support on a timely basis or on commercially reasonable terms, which could result in significant additional costs or disruptions to our business. Any security breach at one of these companies could also affect our customers and harm our business.

We rely on banks or payment processors to collect payments from customers and facilitate payments to suppliers, and changes to credit card association fees, rules or practices may adversely affect our business.

We rely on banks or payment processors to process collections and payments, and we pay a fee for this service. In the countries where we operate, the number of processors is limited so there is little or no competition among processors. From time to time, credit card associations may increase the interchange fees that they charge for each transaction using one of their cards.

For certain payment methods, including credit cards, we pay transaction and other fees, which may increase over time and raise our operating costs, lowering profitability. We rely on third parties to provide payment processing services and it could disrupt our business if these companies become unwilling or unable to provide these services to us. If we fail to comply with these third-party servicers’ rules or requirements, or if our data security systems are breached or compromised (similar to the increase in fraud attempts we experienced in the fourth quarter of 2015 in Brazil), we may be liable for chargebacks, credit card issuing banks’ costs, fines and higher transaction fees and we may lose our ability to accept credit card payments from our customers, process electronic funds transfers, or facilitate other types of online payments. If any of these situations were to occur, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Our business depends on the availability of credit cards and financing options for consumers.

Our business is highly dependent on the availability of credit cards and financing options for consumers. In 2018, 2017 and 2016, substantially all our net sales were derived from payments effected through credit cards. Moreover, approximately 57% of transactions in the year ended December 31, 2018 were paid by installment, using credit cards. As a result, the continued growth of our business is also partially dependent on the expansion of credit card penetration in Latin America, which may never reach a percentage similar to more developed countries for reasons that are beyond our control, such as low credit availability for a significant portion of the population in such countries. The provision of credit cards and other consumer financing depends on the product offerings at local and regional banks operating in the countries we serve. In the past, banking systems in Latin America have suffered disruptions and significantly limited availability and increased cost of consumer credit. Banks may also change their product offerings that they provide to consumers, or may change the availability or costs of such products, due to credit, regulations or other reasons beyond our control. For example, Argentina recently enacted regulations requiring vendors to disclose to customers the full price of items purchased by installment plan, including implicit financing costs. Furthermore, in Argentina, the rules that govern the credit card business provide for variable caps on the interest rates that financial entities may charge clients and the fees that they may charge merchants. Moreover, general legal provisions exist pursuant to which courts could decrease the interest rates and fees agreed upon by the parties on the grounds that they are excessively high.

 

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We rely on various banks to provide financing to our customers who elect to use an installment plan payment option. Some of our competitors also offer installment plans and may offer installment plans with more attractive terms. If we are not able to offer a competitive selection of installment plan financing at competitive rates, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected. Moreover, our agreements with local banks allow us to offer installment payment plans without assuming collection risk from the customer and receive payment in full (provided we choose not to factor such installment payments). We cannot assure you that local banks will not change their credit practices in the future. If our arrangements with local banks are impaired or terminated, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Furthermore, as secure methods of payment for e-commerce transactions have not been widely adopted in certain emerging markets, consumers and other merchants may have relatively low confidence in the integrity of e-commerce transactions and remote payment mechanisms, which may have a material and adverse effect on our business prospects or limit our growth.

Our business could be negatively affected by changes in search engine algorithms and dynamics or other traffic-generating arrangements.

We utilize internet search engines such as Google, principally through the purchase of travel-related keywords, to generate a significant portion of the traffic to our websites. Search engines frequently update and change the algorithms that determine the placement and display of results of a user’s search. It is possible that any such update could negatively affect us or may negatively affect us relative to our competitors. We have developed search engine management tools that are designed to bid more efficiently on portfolios of travel-related keywords and we have a search engine management team dedicated to reviewing the return of investment of all biddings. We cannot assure you that these tools will be effective over the long term, as the search engine market is a dynamic and rapidly changing.

In addition, a significant amount of traffic is directed to our websites through participation in pay-per-click and display advertising campaigns on search engines, including Google, and travel metasearch engines, including TripAdvisor and Trivago. A search or metasearch engine could, for competitive or other purposes, adopt emerging technologies, such as voice, or alter its search algorithms or results, any of which could cause us to place lower in search query results, or exclude our website from the search query results. If a major search engine changes its algorithms or results in a manner that negatively affects the search engine ranking, paid or unpaid, of our websites, or if competitive dynamics impact the costs or effectiveness of search engine optimization, search engine marketing or other traffic-generating arrangements in a negative manner, this may have a material and adverse effect on our business and financial performance. In addition, certain metasearch engines have added or may add various forms of direct or assisted booking functionality to their sites. To the extent such functionality is promoted at the expense of traditional paid listings, this may reduce the amount of traffic to our websites or those of our affiliates.

Changes in internet browser functionality could result in a decrease in our overall revenue.

Some of our services and marketing activities rely on cookies, which are placed on individual browsers when users visit websites. We use these cookies to optimize our marketing campaigns, to better understand our users’ preferences and to detect and prevent fraudulent activity. Users can block or delete cookies through their browsers or “adblocking” software or apps. The most common internet browsers allow users to modify their browser settings to prevent cookies from being accepted by their browsers, or are set to block third-party cookies by default. Increased use of methods, software or apps that block cookies, or diminished interest of users resulting from our use of such marketing activities, may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business depends on the continued growth of e-commerce and the availability and reliability of the internet in Latin America.

The market for e-commerce is developing in Latin America. Our future revenue depends substantially on Latin American consumers’ widespread acceptance and use of the internet as a way to conduct commerce. The use of and interest in the internet (particularly as a way to conduct commerce) has grown rapidly since our inception and we cannot assure you that this acceptance, interest and use will continue in the regions we target. For us to grow our user base successfully, more consumers in our markets must accept and use new ways of conducting business and exchanging information.

The price of personal computers and/or mobile devices and internet access may limit our potential growth in countries with low levels of internet penetration and/or high levels of poverty. In addition, the infrastructure for the internet may not be able to support continued growth in the number of internet users, their frequency of use or their bandwidth requirements.

 

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The internet could lose its viability in our target markets due to delays in telecommunications technological developments, or due to increased government regulation. If telecommunications services change or are not sufficiently available to support the internet, response times would be slower, which would adversely affect use of the internet and our service in particular. Moreover, lack of investment in mobile infrastructure in Latin America may limit the expansion of our mobile offerings, which is one of our key growth strategies.

Growth of e-commerce transactions in Latin America may be impeded by the lack of secure payment methods.

As secure methods of payment for e-commerce transactions have not been widely adopted in Latin America, both consumers and merchants may have a relatively low confidence level in the integrity of e-commerce transactions. Consumer confidence can be adversely affected by incidents of fraud and security breaches, including generally in the marketplace, which is beyond our control. Moreover, although we are PCI DSS certified, most of our suppliers with which we share information are not. The continued growth of e-commerce in the region will depend on consumers’ confidence in the safety of online payment methods.

Our future success depends on our ability to expand and adapt our operations in a cost-effective and timely manner.

We plan to continue to expand our operations by developing and promoting new and complementary services and increasing our penetration in our markets. Moreover, we seek to expand our customer base as income levels and access to internet and banking services, such as credit card issuances, increase in Latin America. We may not succeed at expanding our operations in a cost-effective or timely manner, and our expansion efforts may not have the same or greater overall market acceptance as our current services. Furthermore, any new service that we launch that is not favorably received by consumers could damage our reputation and diminish the value of our brands. To expand our operations we will also need to spend significant amounts on development, operations and other resources, and this may place a strain on our management, financial and operational resources. Similarly, a lack of market acceptance of these services or our inability to generate satisfactory revenue from any expanded services to offset their cost could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be successful in implementing our growth strategies.

Our growth strategies involve expanding our service and product offerings, enhancing our service platforms and potentially pursuing acquisitions or other strategic opportunities.

Our success in implementing our growth strategies could be affected by:

 

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our ability to attract customers in a cost-effective manner, including in markets where we have lower brand awareness or operational history;

 

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our ability to improve the competitiveness of our product offerings including by expanding the number of suppliers and negotiating fares and rates with existing and potential suppliers;

 

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our ability to market and cross-sell our travel services and products to facilitate the expansion of our business;

 

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our ability to compete effectively with existing and new entrants to the Latin American travel industry;

 

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our ability to expand and promote our mobile platform and make it user-friendly;

 

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our ability to build required technology;

 

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our ability to expand our businesses through strategic acquisitions and successfully integrate such acquisitions;

 

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the general condition of the global economy (particularly in Latin America) and continued growth in demand for travel services, particularly online;

 

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the growth of the internet and mobile technology as a medium for commerce in Latin America; and

 

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changes in the regulatory environments where we operate.

Many of these factors are beyond our control and we cannot assure you that we will succeed in implementing our strategies. Even if we are successful in executing our growth strategies, our different businesses may not grow at the same rate or with a uniform effect on our revenue and profitability.

Acquisitions could present risks and disrupt our ongoing business.

We undertake strategic acquisitions from time to time and may do so in the future. For example, in April 2019 we announced our acquisition of Viajes Falabella in Chile, Colombia, Peru and Argentina, together with the license to use the Viajes Falabella brand

 

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name total consideration of $27 million. We cannot assure you that we will be successful in identifying opportunities and consummating acquisitions on favorable terms or at all. Depending on the size and timing of an acquisition, we may be required to raise future financing to consummate the acquisition. Moreover, even if we are able to consummate a transaction, acquisitions may involve significant risks and uncertainties, including distraction of management from current operations, difficulties in integration with our existing business and technology, greater than expected liabilities and expenses, inadequate return on capital, and unidentified issues not discovered in our pre-acquisition investigations and evaluations of those strategies and acquisitions.

If we continue to grow, we may not be able to appropriately manage the increased size of our business.

We have experienced significant expansion in recent years and anticipate that further expansion will be required to address potential growth in our customer base and market opportunities. This expansion has placed, and is expected to continue to place, significant demands on management and our operational and financial resources.

We must constantly improve our software, technology infrastructure, product offering and human resources to accommodate the increased use of our website. This upgrade process is expensive, and the increasing complexity and enhancement of our website result in higher costs. Failure to upgrade our technology, features, transaction processing systems, security infrastructure, or network infrastructure to accommodate increased traffic or transaction volume or the increased complexity of our website could materially harm our business. Adverse consequences could include unanticipated system disruptions, slower response times, degradation in levels of customer support, impaired quality of users’ experiences with our services and delays in reporting accurate financial information. Furthermore, we may need to enter into relationships with various strategic partners and other third-party service providers necessary to our business. The increased complexity of managing multiple commercial relationships could lead to execution problems that can affect current and future revenue and operating margins.

Our failure to manage growth effectively could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Internet regulation in the countries where we operate is scarce, and several legal issues related to the internet are uncertain.

Most of the countries where we operate do not have specific laws governing the liability of e-commerce business intermediaries, such as ourselves, for fraud, intellectual property infringement or other illegal activities committed by individual users or third-party infringing content hosted on a provider’s servers. This legal uncertainty allows for different judges or courts to decide very similar claims in different ways and establish contradictory case law.

In addition, we are subject to a variety of laws, decrees and regulations across the countries where we operate that affect e-commerce, electronic or mobile payments, information requirements for internet providers, data collection, data protection, privacy, anti-money laundering, taxation (including VAT or sales tax collection obligations), obligations to provide certain information to certain authorities about transactions which are processed through our platforms or about our users and those regulations applicable to consumer protection and businesses in general. However, it is not clear how existing laws governing issues such as general commercial activities, property ownership, copyrights and other intellectual property issues, taxation (including tax laws that require us to provide certain information about transactions consummated through our platforms or about our users) and personal privacy apply to online businesses. Many of these laws were adopted before the internet was available and, as a result, do not contemplate or address the unique issues of the internet.

Moreover, due to these areas of legal uncertainty, and the increasing popularity and use of the internet and other online services, it is possible that new laws and regulations will be adopted with respect to the internet or other online services. If laws relating to these issues are enacted, they may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operation and financial condition.

We are subject to laws relating to the collection, use, storage and transfer of personally identifiable information about our users, especially financial information. Several jurisdictions have regulations in this area, and other jurisdictions are considering imposing additional restrictions or regulations. If we violate these laws, which in many cases apply not only to third-party transactions but also to international transfers of information or transfers of information to third parties with which we have commercial relations, we could be subject to significant penalties and negative publicity, which would adversely affect us.

Because our services are accessible worldwide, other foreign jurisdictions may claim that we are required to comply with their laws. Laws regulating internet companies outside of the Latin American jurisdictions where we operate may be more restrictive to us than those in Latin America. In order to comply with these laws, we may have to change our business practices or restrict our services. We could be subject to penalties ranging from criminal prosecution, significant fines or outright bans on our services for failure to comply with foreign laws.

 

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We process, store and use personal information, card payment information and other consumer data, which subjects us to risks stemming from possible failure to comply with governmental regulation and other legal obligations.

In our business, we use personal information, card payment information and other consumer data from users of our website and mobile applications. There are numerous laws regarding privacy and the storing, sharing, use, processing, transfer, disclosure and protection of personal information, card payment information and other consumer data, the scope of which are changing, subject to differing interpretations, and may be inconsistent between countries or conflict with other rules. We strive to comply with all applicable laws, policies, legal obligations and industry codes of conduct relating to privacy and data protection. It is possible, however, that these obligations may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another and may conflict with other rules or the practices of the company. Any failure or perceived failure by us, or our service providers, to comply with the privacy policies, privacy-related obligations to users or other third parties, or privacy related legal obligations, or any compromise of security that results in the unauthorized release or transfer of personally identifiable information, payment card information or other consumer data, may result in governmental enforcement actions, litigation or public statements against the company by consumer advocacy groups or others and could cause our customers and members to lose trust in the company, as well as subject us to bank fines, penalties or increased transaction costs, all of which could have an adverse effect on our business.

The regulatory framework for privacy issues is currently in flux and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Practices regarding the collection, use, storage, transmission and security of personal information by companies operating over the internet have recently come under increased public scrutiny. Countries in Latin America are increasingly implementing new privacy regulations, resulting in additional compliance burdens and uncertainty as to how some of these laws will be interpreted.

Application of existing tax laws or regulations are subject to interpretation by taxing authorities.

The application of income and non-income tax laws and regulations to our products and services is subject to interpretation by the applicable taxing authorities across the multiple jurisdictions in which we operate our business. For example, in Brazil we are subject to corporate income tax (IRPJ), social contribution on net profits (CSLL), social contribution on total revenue (PIS and COFINS), withholding taxes, and a municipal tax on services (ISS). In Argentina, we are subject to income tax, value added tax, and turnover tax. In both countries, we are subject to transfer pricing rules applicable to cross-border operations with related parties or parties in tax havens or subject to privileged fiscal regimes. These taxing authorities may become more aggressive in their interpretation and/or enforcement of such laws and regulations over time, as governments are increasingly focused on ways to increase revenue. This may contribute to an increase in audit activity and harsher stances by tax authorities. As such, additional taxes or other assessments may be in excess of our current tax reserves or may require us to modify our business practices to reduce our exposure to additional taxes going forward, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

While we believe we currently comply in all material respects with applicable tax laws and regulations in the jurisdictions we operate, tax authorities may determine that we owe additional taxes. Moreover, we may have historical tax contingencies across multiple jurisdictions, and while we have made provisions for those contingencies which we considered probable, the amount of total contingencies may exceed our provisions. We estimate that as of December 31, 2018 we have approximately $13.7 million of unasserted possible losses, including related to taxes, for which we have not recorded provisions. In accordance with U.S. GAAP, we record provisions for contingencies based on probable loss or when otherwise required under accounting rules, but we do not record provisions for possible and remote losses.

Significant judgment and estimation is required in determining our tax liabilities. In the ordinary course of our business, there are transactions and calculations, including intercompany transactions and cross-jurisdictional transfer pricing, for which the ultimate tax determination may be uncertain or otherwise subject to interpretation. Tax authorities may disagree with our intercompany charges, including the amount of or basis for such charges, cross-jurisdictional transfer pricing or other matters, and assess additional taxes. Although we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, the final determination of tax audits could be materially different from our historical income tax provisions and accruals, in which case we may be subject to additional tax liabilities, possibly including interest and penalties, which could have a material adverse effect on our cash flows and results of operations. Moreover, we have in the past and may in the future be required in certain jurisdictions to pay any such tax assessments prior to contesting their validity, which payments may be substantial.

Amendment to existing tax laws or regulations or enactment of new unfavorable tax laws or regulations could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Many of the underlying laws or regulations imposing taxes and other obligations were established before the growth of the internet and e-commerce. If the tax or other laws or regulations were amended, or if new unfavorable laws or regulations were enacted, our tax payments or other obligations could increase, prospectively or retrospectively, subject us to interest and penalties, decrease the demand for our products and services if we pass on such costs to our customers, result in increased costs to update or expand our technical or administrative infrastructure or effectively limit the scope of our business activities if we decided not to conduct business in particular jurisdictions. As a result, these changes could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

 

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Governments could adopt tax laws that increase our tax rate or tax liabilities or affect the carrying value of deferred tax assets or liabilities, including the termination of tax-free incentives or termination of treaties for the avoidance of double taxation. Any changes to tax laws could impact the tax treatment of our earnings and adversely affect our profitability. Our effective tax rate in the future could also be adversely affected by changes to our operating structure, changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, or changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities. Moreover, our results of operations and financial condition may be affected if certain beneficial tax incentives are not retained or renewed.

New laws and regulations requiring economic substance in the BVI

On 1 January 2019 the Economic Substance (Companies and Limited Partnerships) Act, 2018 (the “ES Act”) came into force in the British Virgin Islands. The ES Act was enacted in direct response to a scoping paper issued by the European Union’s Code of Conduct Group (Business Taxation) in June 2018. The scoping paper (a) expressed concerns regarding so-called harmful tax competition and the potential “misuse” of offshore entities for profit-shifting; and (b) set out requirements that certain jurisdictions outside the European Union must adopt in order for the jurisdiction to avoid being “blacklisted” by the European Union.

Under the ES Act, companies incorporated in the BVI that are not tax resident in another jurisdiction and which carry on certain specified activities must establish and maintain ‘economic substance’ in the BVI. Considering the company is Tax-Resident in the US substance requirements should not apply.

We are subject to anti-corruption and economic sanctions laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we operate, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and regulations administered and enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations could negatively impact our business, our results of operations, and our financial condition.

We are subject to a number of anti-corruption and economic sanctions laws and regulations, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and regulations administered and enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”). Failure to comply with these laws and regulations could negatively impact our business, our results of operations, and our financial condition.

The FCPA and similar anti-bribery laws generally prohibit companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments or improperly providing anything of value to foreign officials, directly or indirectly, for the purpose of obtaining or keeping business and/or other benefits. The FCPA also requires maintenance of adequate record-keeping and internal accounting practices to accurately reflect transactions. Under the FCPA, companies operating in the United States may be held liable for actions taken by their strategic or local partners or representatives. Other jurisdictions in which we operate have adopted similar anti-corruption, anti-bribery and anti-kickback laws to which we are subject.

Economic sanctions and embargo laws and regulations, such as those administered and enforced by OFAC, vary in their application, as they do not all apply to the same covered persons or proscribe the same activities, and such sanctions and embargo laws and regulations may be amended or strengthened over time. Although we believe that we are in compliance with all applicable sanctions and embargo laws and regulations, and intend to maintain such compliance, there can be no assurance that we will be in compliance in the future, particularly as the scope of certain laws may be unclear and may be subject to changing interpretations.

Civil and criminal penalties may be imposed for violations of these laws. We operate in some countries which are viewed as high risk for corruption and/or economic sanctions issues. Despite our ongoing efforts to ensure compliance with the FCPA and similar laws, and economic sanctions laws and regulations, there can be no assurance that our directors, officers, employees, agents, and third-party intermediaries will comply with those laws and our policies, and we may be ultimately held responsible for any such non-compliance. If we or our directors or officers violate such laws or other similar laws governing the conduct of our business (including local laws), we or our directors or officers may be subject to criminal and civil penalties or other remedial measures, which could harm our reputation and have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Any investigation of any actual or alleged violations of such laws could also harm our reputation or have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

 

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We are, and may be in the future, involved in various legal proceedings, the outcomes of which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We are, and may be in the future, involved in various legal proceedings relating to allegations of our failure to comply with consumer protection, labor, tax or antitrust regulations, that could involve claims or sanctions for substantial amounts of money or for other relief or that might necessitate changes to our business or operations.

Our websites contain information about hotels, flights, popular vacation destinations and other travel-related topics. It is possible that if any information, accessible on our websites, contains errors or false or misleading information, third parties could take action against us for losses incurred in connection with the use of such information. In addition, because consumer protection laws in many of our markets provide for joint liability, customers may bring claims against us for a failure or deficiencies in the provision of a travel product or service by one of our suppliers that is outside of our control.

The defense of any of these actions is, and may continue to be, both time-consuming and expensive. We cannot assure you that we will prevail in these legal proceedings or in any future legal proceedings and if such disputes were to result in an unfavorable outcome, it could result in reputational damage and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. For a discussion of certain key legal proceedings relating to us, see “Item 4. Information on the Company — Business Overview — Legal Proceedings.”

We may not be able to adequately protect and enforce our intellectual property rights; and we could potentially face claims alleging that our technologies infringe the property rights of others.

Our websites and mobile applications rely on brands, domain names, technology and content. We protect our brands and domain names by relying on trademark and domain name registration in accordance with laws in Latin America. We have also entered into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and certain contractors, as well as confidentiality agreements with certain suppliers and strategic partners, in order to protect our technology and content. We own our technology platform, which is comprised of applications that we develop in-house using primarily open source software. We have not registered our technology, however, because we believe it would be difficult to replicate and that it is adequately protected by the agreements we have in place. Additionally, our technology is constantly evolving and any registration may run the risk of protecting outdated technology. Even with these precautions, it may be possible for another party to copy or otherwise obtain and use our intellectual property without our authorization or to develop similar intellectual property independently. Effective trademark protection may not be available in every jurisdiction in which our services are made available, and policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and expensive. Any misappropriation or violation of our rights could have a material adverse effect on our business. Furthermore, we may need to go to court or other tribunals to enforce our intellectual property rights or to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. These proceedings might result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and management attention.

We currently license from third parties some of the technologies, trademarks and content incorporated into our websites. As we continue to introduce new services that incorporate new technologies, third parties’ trademarks and content, we may be required to license additional technologies, third parties’ trademarks and content. We cannot be sure that such technologies and content licenses will be available on commercially reasonable terms, if at all.

Third parties may assert that our services, products and technology, including software and processes, violate their intellectual property rights. As competition in our industry increases and the functionality of technology offerings further overlaps, such claims and counterclaims could increase. We cannot assure you that we do not or will not inadvertently infringe on the intellectual property rights of third parties. Any intellectual property claim against us, regardless of its merit, could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations and could be expensive and time consuming to defend. Our failure to prevail in such matters could result in loss of intellectual property rights, judgments awarding substantial damages and injunctive or other equitable relief against us, or require us to delay or cease offering services or reduce features in our services.

Increased labor costs, compliance with labor laws and regulations and failure to maintain good relations with labor unions may adversely affect our results of operations.

We are required to comply with extensive labor regulations in each of the countries in which we have employees, including with respect to wages, social security benefits and termination payments. If we fail to comply with these regulations we may face labor claims and government fines.

In the past, governments from certain countries in which we operate, including Argentina, have adopted laws, regulations and other measures requiring companies in the private sector to increase wages and provide specified benefits to employees. We cannot assure you that these governments will not do so again in the future.

 

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In addition, some of our employees in Argentina, Brazil and certain other countries are currently represented by labor unions. We may face pressure from our labor unions or otherwise to increase salaries. In Argentina, for example, employers in both the public and private sectors have historically experienced, and are currently experiencing, significant pressure from unions and their employees to further increase salaries due to the devaluation of the peso and high inflation. The INDEC published data regarding the evolution of salaries in the private and public sectors in Argentina, which reflects approximately 30.4% and 30.3% for 2017 and 30.4% and 30.3% for 2018 salary increases in the private and public sectors, respectively.

Due to high levels of inflation and full employment in the tech industry, we expect to continue to raise salaries. If future salary increases in the Argentine peso or the currencies of other countries in which we have employees exceed the pace of the devaluation of those currencies, such salary increases could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Moreover, while we have enjoyed satisfactory relationships with labor unions that represent our employees, labor-related disputes may still arise. Labor disputes that result in strikes or other disruptions could adversely affect our business, financial condition and result of operations.

A failure to comply with current laws, rules and regulations or changes to such laws, rules and regulations and other legal uncertainties may adversely affect our business, results of operations or business growth.

We have been subject, and we will likely be subject in the future, to inquiries from time to time from regulatory bodies concerning compliance with consumer protection, tax, labor, antitrust and travel industry-specific laws and regulations.

Such inquiries have included investigations and legal proceedings relating to the travel industry and, in particular, parity provisions in contracts between hotels and travel companies, including us, as well as allegations of “geopricing” or “geoblocking practices.” See Item 4. “Business—Legal and Regulatory—Legal Proceedings” for more information. Parity provisions are significant to our business model, and their removal or modification may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. We are unable at this time to predict the timing or outcome of these various investigations and lawsuits, or similar future investigations or lawsuits, and their impact, if any, on our business and results of operations.

The failure of our businesses to comply with these laws and regulations could result in fines and/or proceedings against us by governmental agencies and/or consumers, which if material, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, if such laws and regulations are not enforced equally against other competitors in a particular market, our compliance with such laws may put us a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis competitors which do not comply with such requirements.

Complaints from customers or negative publicity about our services can diminish consumer confidence and adversely affect our business.

Because volume and growth in the number of new customers are key drivers of our revenue and profitability, customer complaints or negative publicity about our customer service could severely diminish consumer confidence in and use of our services. Measures we sometimes take to combat risks of fraud and breaches of privacy and security can damage relations with our customers. To maintain good customer relations, we need prompt and accurate customer service to resolve irregularities and disputes. Effective customer service requires significant personnel expense and investment in developing programs and technology infrastructure to help customer service representatives carry out their functions. These expenses, if not managed properly, could significantly impact our profitability. Failure to manage or train our customer service representatives properly could compromise our ability to handle customer complaints effectively. If we do not handle customer complaints effectively, our reputation and brand may suffer and we may lose our customers’ confidence.

Consumer adoption and use of mobile devices creates new challenges.

Widespread adoption of mobile devices, coupled with the web browsing functionality and development of apps available on these devices, is driving substantial online traffic and commerce to mobile platforms. We have experienced a significant shift of business to mobile platforms and our suppliers are also seeing a rapid shift of traffic to mobile platforms. Many of our competitors and new market entrants are offering mobile apps for travel products and other functionality, including proprietary last-minute discounts for accommodation reservations. Advertising and distribution opportunities may be more limited on mobile devices given their smaller screen sizes. The average price of travel products purchased in mobile transactions may be less than a typical desktop transaction due to different consumer purchasing patterns. Further, given the device sizes and technical limitations of tablets and smartphones, mobile consumers may not be willing to download multiple apps from multiple companies providing a similar service and instead prefer to use one or a limited number of apps for their mobile travel activity. As a result, the consumer experience with mobile apps as well as brand recognition and loyalty are likely to become increasingly important. Our mobile offerings drive a material and increasing share of our business. We believe that mobile bookings present an opportunity for growth and are necessary to maintain and grow our business as consumers increasingly turn to mobile devices instead of a desktop computer. As a result, it is increasingly important for

 

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us to develop and maintain effective mobile apps and websites optimized for mobile devices to provide consumers with an appealing, easy-to-use mobile experience. If we are unable to continue to innovate rapidly and create new, user-friendly and differentiated mobile offerings and advertise and distribute on these platforms efficiently and effectively, or if our mobile offerings are not used by consumers, we could lose considerable market share to existing competitors or new entrants and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Moreover, we are dependent on the compatibility of our app with popular mobile operating systems that we do not control, such as Android and iOS, and any changes in such systems that degrade our products’ functionality or give preferential treatment to competitive products could adversely affect the usage of our app on mobile devices. Additionally, in order to deliver high quality mobile products, it is important that our products work well with a range of mobile technologies, systems, networks, and standards that we do not control. We may not be successful in developing relationships with key participants in the mobile industry or in developing products that operate effectively with these technologies, systems, networks, or standards. In the event that it is more difficult for our users to access and use our app on their mobile devices, or if our users choose not to access or use our app on their mobile devices or use mobile products that do not offer access to our app, our user growth and user engagement could be harmed.

We rely exclusively on Expedia for the hotel and other lodging products that we offer for all countries outside Latin America.

The hotel and other lodging products that we offer through our platform for all the countries outside Latin America are provided to us exclusively by affiliates of Expedia pursuant to the Expedia Outsourcing Agreement. In addition, Expedia is the preferred provider to us of hotel and other lodging products in Latin America. For more information on our relationships with Expedia, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions — B. Related Party — Relationship with Expedia.”

If Expedia’s affiliates cease to provide us with their hotel and other lodging products, we may be unable to offer these products to our users for some time and it might be difficult for us to replace this supply in the short term, which would negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. The Expedia Outsourcing Agreement may be terminated by Expedia, and we may be required to pay a $125.0 million termination payment, if we do not meet certain minimum performance requirements or if the termination by Expedia is for our material breach of certain terms under the Expedia Outsourcing Agreement or our Shareholder Agreements. In addition, Expedia may unilaterally terminate the Expedia Outsourcing Agreement in the event of a change of control of our Company.

Moreover, if the hotel and other lodging products provided by Expedia were to suffer a deterioration in scale or quality, or if their pricing were not attractive, the products and services that we offer to our users would be adversely affected. The Expedia Outsourcing Agreement may be terminated by us unilaterally beginning from March 6, 2022 upon payment of a $125.0 million termination payment to Expedia. Consequently, if a deterioration in the scale or quality of the products and services provided exclusively to us by affiliates of Expedia were to occur, or if their pricing were not attractive, it could be difficult for us to terminate the Expedia Outsourcing Agreement.

We may experience constraints in our liquidity and may be unable to access capital when necessary or desirable, either of which could adversely affect our financial condition.

Although we believe we have a sufficient level of cash and cash equivalents to cover our working capital needs in the ordinary course of business, we may, from time to time, explore additional financing sources and means to improve our liquidity and lower our cost of capital, which could include equity, equity-linked and debt financing and factoring activities. In addition, from time to time, we review acquisition and investment opportunities to further implement our business strategy and may fund these investments with bank financing, the issuance of debt or equity or a combination thereof.

The availability of financing depends in significant measure on capital markets and liquidity factors over which we exert no control. In light of periodic uncertainty in the capital and credit markets, we can provide no assurance that sufficient financing will be available on desirable or even any terms to improve our liquidity, fund investments, acquisitions or extraordinary actions or that our counterparties in any such financings would honor their contractual commitments, which in turn could negatively affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, if we raise funding through the issuance of new equity or equity-linked securities, it would dilute the percentage ownership of our then existing shareholders.

Our business experiences seasonal fluctuations and quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our results may not be meaningful.

Our business experiences fluctuations, reflecting seasonal variations in demand for travel services. For example, bookings for vacation and leisure travel are generally higher during the fourth quarter, although we have historically recognized more revenue associated with those bookings in the first quarter of each year. As a result, quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our results may not be meaningful. Moreover, seasonal fluctuations in our results of operations could result in declines in our share price that are not related to the overall performance and prospects of our business.

 

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The use of derivative financial instruments may adversely affect our results of operations, particularly in a volatile and uncertain market.

From time to time, we enter into derivative transactions to manage our risks associated with currency exchange rates and interest rates. Significant changes may occur in our portfolio of derivative instruments due to increasing volatility and the fluctuation of the currencies of certain countries where we operate, including Brazil and Argentina, against the dollar and volatility in the relevant interest rates, and we may incur net losses from our derivative financial instruments. The fair value of the derivative instruments fluctuates over time as a result of the effects of future interest rates and exchange rates. These values must be analyzed in connection with the underlying transactions and as a part of our total average exposure to interest rate and exchange rate fluctuations. It is difficult to predict the magnitude of the risk resulting from derivative instruments because the appreciation is imprecise and variable. We may be adversely affected by our derivative financial positions.

Risks Related to Latin America

Latin American countries are subject to political and social instability.

Political and social developments in Latin America, including government deadlock, instability, civil strife, terrorism, high levels of crime, expropriations and other risks of doing business in Latin America could impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

For example, in Brazil, in the last couple of years, as a result of the ongoing Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato investigation), a number of senior politicians have resigned or been arrested and other senior elected officials and public officials are being investigated for allegations of corruption. One of the most significant events that elapsed from this operation was the impeachment of the former President Rousseff by the Brazilian Senate on August, 2016, for violations of fiscal responsibility laws and the governing of its Vice-President, Michel Temer, during the last two years of the presidential mandate, which due to the development of the investigations conducted by the Federal Police Department and the General Federal Prosecutor’s Office indicted President Temer on corruption charges. Since Temer’s mandate as President has ceased in the beginning of 2019, the proceeding against him that was suspended is going to be analyzed and judged soon.

Along with the political and economic uncertainty period the country was facing, in July 2017, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was convicted of corruption and money laundering by a lower federal court in the State of Paraná in connection with the Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato). With the arrest of former President Lula da Silva on April 7, 2018, who was a frontrunner in the elections to be held in 2018, Fernando Haddad assumed as a frontrunner disputing the elections against several candidates, among which was Jair Bolsonaro, the elected President of Brazil.

Even though there are a lot of variables to be considered, especially the global scenario, the election of Jair Bolsonaro brought expectation to the economy and politics, once the market predicted a more stable scene that would favor the foreign investors and the local industry. Up to this moment, the economy has shown a moderate growth compared to the recession faced by Brazil in 2015 and 2016 and the weak recovery from the last couple of years.

However, the new government will face a challenge of regaining the trust of its people and the market, and even more challenging than making the economy grow fast is to maintain its stability for the next 4 years.

In Argentina, during 2001 and 2002, the country experienced social and political turmoil, including the resignation of President De la Rúa, riots, looting, protests, strikes and street demonstrations. Also, in the past decade, the prior Argentine administration nationalized or announced plans to nationalize certain industries and expropriate private sector companies and property. In December 2008, the Argentine government transferred approximately AR$94.4 billion ($29.3 billion) in assets held by the country’s private Administradoras de Fondos de Jubilaciones y Pensiones (pension fund management companies, or “AFJPs”) to the government-run social security agency (“ANSES”). AFJPs were the largest participants in the country’s local capital market. With the nationalization of their assets, the local capital market decreased in size and became substantially concentrated. In addition, the Argentine government became a significant shareholder in many of the country’s public companies, including YPF S.A., the main Argentine oil and gas company, in which the majority of the capital stock was expropriated from the Spanish company Repsol, S.A. in 2012.

Argentine presidential, congressional, municipal, state government and other relevant local and federal elections will be held in October, 2019, and their impact on the future economic and political environment is uncertain, but likely to be material. We can offer no assurances as to the policies that may be implemented by the next Argentine administration, or that political developments in Argentina will not adversely affect the Argentine economy and our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, we cannot assure you that future economic, regulatory, social and political developments in Argentina will not impair our business.

Although political and social conditions in one country may differ significantly from another country, events in any of our key markets could adversely affect our business, financial conditions or results of operations.

Latin American countries have experienced periods of adverse macroeconomic conditions.

Our business is dependent upon economic conditions prevalent in Latin America. Latin American countries have historically experienced economic instability, including uneven periods of economic growth as well as significant downturns. As a consequence of economic conditions in global markets and lower commodity prices and demand for commodities, many of the economies of Latin American countries have recently slowed their rates of growth, and some have entered recessions.

 

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For example, Brazil Real GDP decreased 3.8% in 2015, decreased 3.6% in 2016, increased 1% in 2017 and increased 1,1% in 2018, according to the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estadística, or “IGBE”). In addition, the credit rating of the Brazilian federal government was downgraded in 2015 and 2016 by all major credit rating agencies and is no longer investment grade. Additionally, political tensions in Venezuela have risen in January 2019 as a number of countries have not recognized the legitimacy of Nicolás Maduro as the Venezuelan head of state. In addition, on January 25, 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order amending prior economic sanctions targeting the Maduro government.

Argentina during 2001 and 2002 underwent a period of severe political, economic and social crisis with real GDP contracting 10.9% in 2002. Among other consequences, the crisis resulted in the Argentine government defaulting on its foreign debt obligations, a significant devaluation of the Argentine peso, the introduction of emergency measures and numerous changes in regulations and economic policies, which in turn caused numerous Argentine private sector companies to default on their outstanding debt. According to INDEC, Argentina’s real GDP decreased 3.5% for the period from October 2017 through October 2018, compared to a 2.9% increase in 2017, after reducing 2.3% in 2016.

Since our business is dependent on discretionary consumer spending, which is influenced by general economic conditions, any prolonged economic downturn in any of our key markets could have adverse effects on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Latin American governments have exercised and continue to exercise significant influence over their economies.

Governments in Latin America frequently intervene in the economies of their respective countries and occasionally make significant changes in policy and regulations. Governmental actions have often involved, among other measures, nationalizations and expropriations, price controls, currency devaluations, mandatory increases on wages and employee benefits, capital controls and limits on imports. Our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected by changes in government policies or regulations, including such factors as exchange rates and exchange control policies; inflation control policies; price control policies; consumer protection policies; import duties and restrictions; liquidity of domestic capital and lending markets; electricity rationing; tax policies, including tax increases and retroactive tax claims; and other political, diplomatic, social and economic developments in or affecting the countries where we operate.

In the future, the level of intervention by Latin American governments may continue or increase. We cannot assure you that these or other measures will not have a material adverse effect on the economy of each respective country and, consequently, will not adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Inflation, and government measures to curb inflation, may adversely affect Latin American economies.

Many of the countries in which we operate have experienced, or are currently experiencing, high rates of inflation. For example, the inflation rate in Brazil, as reflected by the Broad Consumer Price Index (Índice Nacional de Preços ao Consumidor Amplo, or “IPCA”), published by the IBGE, was 6.4% in 2014, 10.7% in 2015, 6.3% in 2016, 2.9% in 2017 and 3,8% in 2018.

In Argentina, inflation has materially undermined the economy and the government’s ability to foster conditions that permit stable growth. The Consumer Price Index (Índice de Precios al Consumidor de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires or “IPCBA”) measured by the City of Buenos Aires (national statistical data was not available in Argentina from December 2015 to June 2016) showed an increase 26.9% in 2015 and 41% in 2016. According to measurements from INDEC of the national consumer price index, inflation for the first nine months of 2015 was 10.7%, for the period from May to December 2016 was 15.8%, and cumulative consumer price inflation for the year 2017 was 24.8%, and for the year 2018 was 47.6%. Moreover, INDEC reported that the 2019 monthly consumer price index increased by 2.9% in January compared to December 2018, 3.8% in February compared to January 2019 and 7.7% in March compared to February 2019.

On December 2015 the Argentine government declared the national statistics agency; i.e., the INDEC, in state of administrative emergency until December 31, 2016 through Decree No. 55/2016, which was not renewed, and announced the implementation of certain methodological reforms and adjustment of certain macroeconomic statistics on the basis of these reforms. As a result of the declaration of emergency, the INDEC ceased publishing certain statistical data until June 16, 2016, when it resumed publishing inflation rates, and began to release revised data. On November 9, 2016, the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) Executive Board lifted its censure on Argentina, noting that Argentina had resumed the publication of data. As of the date of this annual report, INDEC has resumed publication of mentioned statistical data, although for some indicators it has not disclosed or provided estimated figures for certain time periods.

 

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The current Argentine government has set goals to reduce the primary fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP over time, reduce the Argentine government’s reliance on Central Bank financing and has requested financial assistance from International Monetary Fund. If in spite of these measures the current Argentine government is unable to address Argentina’s structural inflationary imbalances, the prevailing high rates of inflation may continue, which would have an adverse effect on Argentina’s economy.

Inflation in Argentina could increase our costs of operations and impact our financial condition and results of operations. Inflation rates may continue to increase in the future, and the effects and effectiveness of government measures to control inflation, adopted presently or in the future, remains uncertain.

Exchange rate fluctuations against the dollar in the countries in which we operate could negatively affect our results of operations.

Local currencies used in the conduct of our business are subject to depreciation and volatility. The currencies of many countries in Latin America have experienced significant volatility in the past, particularly against the dollar.

Furthermore, the Brazilian Real has historically experienced frequent, sometimes significant, fluctuations relative to the dollar. The Real depreciated 47% in 2015, appreciated 17% in 2016, depreciated 2% and 17% in 2017 and 2018, respectively, based on official exchange rates as reported by the Brazilian Central Bank. In addition, the Argentine peso has also continued to suffer significant devaluations against the U.S. dollar. The Argentine peso depreciated 52% against the dollar in 2015, primarily after the lifting of certain foreign exchange restrictions in the month of December, depreciated 17% against the dollar in the year ended December 31, 2016 and depreciated 18% against the dollar in 2017 and 51% against the dollar in 2018.

We are subject to foreign currency exchange controls in certain countries in which we operate.

Certain Latin American economies have experienced shortages in foreign currency reserves and their respective governments have adopted restrictions on the ability to transfer funds out of the country and convert local currencies into dollars.

For example, Brazilian law provides that whenever there is a serious imbalance in Brazil’s balance of payments or reason to foresee a serious imbalance, the Brazilian government may impose temporary restrictions on the remittance to foreign investors of the proceeds of their investments in Brazil.

Argentina in 2001 and 2002 imposed exchange controls and transfer restrictions substantially limiting the ability of companies to make payments abroad. Since the last quarter of 2011, the Argentine government increased controls on the sale of foreign currency and the acquisition of foreign assets by local residents, limiting the possibility of transferring funds abroad. In December 2015, the new administration lifted several exchange control restrictions, and in August 2016, the Argentine Central Bank issued new regulations which repealed most of the restrictions for the purchase of foreign currency and the inflow and outflow of funds from Argentina, providing greater flexibility and access to the Argentine official foreign exchange market (the “MULC” for its acronym in Spanish or the “FX Market”). Furthermore, on May 19, 2017, the Central Bank issued new regulations regarding access to the foreign exchange market essentially abrogating all prior regulations and restrictions.

We cannot assure you that foreign exchange controls in Brazil, Argentina or any other country where we operate, may not reemerge or worsen in the future to prevent capital flight, counter a significant depreciation of the Brazilian real, Argentine peso or other currency, or address other unforeseen circumstances. Additional controls could have a negative effect on the ability of our operating entities in the affected country to access the international credit or capital markets.

Any shortages or restrictions on the transfer of funds from abroad may impede our ability to convert these currencies into dollars and to transfer funds, including for the payment of dividends or debt. Moreover, such restrictions limit our ability to use funds for operating purposes in other countries. Consequently, if we are prohibited from transferring funds out of the countries in which we operate, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected. For a discussion of certain foreign exchange regulations applicable to us, see “Item 10. Additional Information — Exchange Controls.”

Developments in other markets may affect Latin America.

The market value of companies like us may be, to varying degrees, affected by economic and market conditions in other global markets. Various Latin American economies have been adversely impacted by the political and economic events that occurred in several emerging economies in recent times, including Mexico in 1994, the collapse of several Asian economies between 1997 and 1998, the economic crisis in Russia in 1998, the Brazilian devaluations in January of 1999 and 2002 and the Argentine crisis of 2001 and 2012. In addition, Latin American economies have been adversely affected by events in developed countries, such as the 2008 and 2009 global financial crisis that arose in the United States.

 

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As of the date of this Annual Report, recent global developments have occurred in the world which could impact the economies of the Latin American countries in which we operate and consequently have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and the results of operations, such as any new restrictions on travel, immigration or trade.

Developments of a similar magnitude to the international markets in the future can be expected to adversely affect the economies of Latin American countries and, therefore, us.

Risks Related to our Ordinary Shares

An active or liquid trading market for our ordinary shares may not be maintained.

An active, liquid trading market for our ordinary shares may not be maintained in the long term. Loss of liquidity could increase the price volatility of our ordinary shares. Moreover, we cannot assure you that investors will be able to sell ordinary shares should they decide to do so.

The price of our ordinary shares may fluctuate significantly and your investment may decline in value.

The price of our ordinary shares may fluctuate significantly in response to factors, many of which are beyond our control, including those described above under “—Risks Related to our Business” and “—Risks Related to Latin America.” The stock markets in general, and the shares of emerging market and technology companies in particular, have experienced price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of the companies involved. We cannot assure you that any trading price or valuation will be sustained. These factors may materially and adversely affect the market price of our ordinary shares, which may limit or prevent investors from readily selling our ordinary shares and may otherwise affect liquidity, regardless of our operating performance. Market fluctuations, as well as general political and economic conditions in the markets in which we operate, such as recession or currency exchange rate fluctuations, may also adversely affect the market price of our ordinary shares. Following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, that company may often be subject to securities class-action litigation. This kind of litigation may result in substantial costs and a diversion of management’s attention and resources, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operation.

The sale or availability for sale of substantial amounts of our ordinary shares could adversely affect their market price.

Sales of substantial amounts of our ordinary shares in the public market, or the perception that such sales could occur, could adversely affect the market price of our ordinary shares, even if there is no relationship between such sales and the performance of our business.

A portion of our ordinary shares are currently held by affiliates, which means they may not be sold unless the sale is registered under the Securities Act, other than if an exemption from registration is available. Certain of our shareholders have demanded and/or other may demand piggyback registration rights which may enable them to sell some or all of their ordinary shares in a public offering in the United States registered under the Securities Act. For more information, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions—B. Related Party Transactions.”

The strategic interests of our significant shareholders may, from time to time, differ from, and conflict with, our interests and the interests of our other shareholders.

As of December 31, 2018, Expedia held 13.9% and funds affiliated with Tiger Global held 17.8% of our outstanding ordinary shares. If Expedia or other investors acquire or continue to own and control, directly or indirectly, a substantial portion of our voting share capital, even if their respective interests represent less than a majority of our total voting share capital, such shareholders may be able to exert influence over decisions at both the shareholder and board level of our Company. For more information, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions.”

The strategic interests of our significant shareholders, may differ from, and conflict with, our interests and the interests of our other shareholders in material respects. In addition, our memorandum and articles of association provides that Expedia and any of our directors affiliated with Expedia do not have any duty to refrain from engaging, directly or indirectly, in the same business activities or similar business activities or lines of business in which we operate.

Expedia also competes in the global travel industry, and also acts as a supplier to us and certain of our competitors. For a further description of our relationship with Expedia, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions—B. Related Party Transactions,” “—Risks Related to our Business—We rely exclusively on Expedia for the hotel and other lodging products that we offer for all countries outside Latin America,” and “Item 16G. Corporate Governance—Differences in Corporate Law—Conflict of Interest.”

 

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We cannot assure you that the actions of Expedia and other significant shareholders, will not conflict with our interests or the interests of our other shareholders.

We have not determined any specific use for our net proceeds from our initial public offering and we may use the proceeds in ways with which you may not agree.

The principal purposes of our initial public offering in September 2017 was to increase our financial flexibility and create a public market for our ordinary shares. We have not allocated our net proceeds from our initial public offering to any particular purpose. Rather, our management has considerable discretion in the application of the net proceeds that we received. Our net proceeds may be used for corporate purposes that do not improve our profitability or increase our share price. In addition, net proceeds we received from our initial public offering may be placed in investments that do not produce income or that lose value.

Investors should not unduly rely on market information included in this Annual Report.

Facts, statistics, forecasts and other information included in this Annual Report relating to the Latin America travel and e-commerce markets are derived from various sources, including independent consultant reports, publicly available information, industry publications, official government information and other third-party sources, as well as internal data and estimates. Although we believe that this information is reliable, the information has not been independently verified by us. Additionally, we cannot assure you that the market data included in this Annual Report is compiled or stated on the same basis as may be the case in the United States or elsewhere, particularly as the publication of certain market data for the Latin American region may be relatively newer than in the United States or elsewhere.

In addition, certain data related to the Latin American travel market and the Latin American online travel market includes the purchase of hotel and other travel products by inbound travelers traveling to Latin America, as well as corporate travel. Our customer base, however, is primarily comprised of consumers from Latin America traveling for leisure domestically within their own country of origin, to other countries in the Latin American region, and outside of Latin America. Market data related solely to the travel trends of Latin American consumers is limited. As a result, certain market data included in this Annual Report is being provided to investors to give a general sense of the trends of our industry but such market data does not capture the trends of only our targeted customers.

Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on the market information included in this Annual Report.

We are a foreign private issuer under U.S. securities regulations and, as a result, we are not subject to U.S. proxy rules and we are subject to Exchange Act reporting obligations that, to some extent, are more lenient and less frequent than those of a U.S. issuer.

We report under the Exchange Act as a non-U.S. company and a “foreign private issuer,” as such term is defined under U.S. securities regulations. Because we qualify as a foreign private issuer, we are exempt from certain provisions of the Exchange Act that are applicable to U.S. public companies, including (1) the sections of the Exchange Act regulating the solicitation of proxies, consents or authorizations in respect of a security registered under the Exchange Act; (2) the sections of the Exchange Act requiring insiders to file public reports of their stock ownership and trading activities and liability for insiders who profit from trades made in a short period of time; and (3) the rules under the Exchange Act requiring the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) of quarterly reports on Form 10-Q containing unaudited financial and other specified information, or current reports on Form 8-K upon the occurrence of specified events. In addition, we are not required to file our annual report on Form 20-F until 120 days after the end of each fiscal year, while U.S. domestic issuers that are accelerated filers are required to file their annual report on Form 10-K within 75 days after the end of each fiscal year. Foreign private issuers are also exempt from Regulation Fair Disclosure, aimed at preventing issuers from making selective disclosures of material information. As a result of the above, even though we are required to furnish reports on Form 6-K disclosing whatever information we have made or are required to make public pursuant to BVI law or distribute to our shareholders and that is material to our Company, you may not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are not foreign private issuers.

We are exempt from certain corporate governance requirements of the New York Stock Exchange.

We are exempt from certain corporate governance requirements of the New York Stock Exchange, by virtue of being a foreign private issuer. The standards applicable to us are considerably different than the standards applied to U.S. domestic issuers. For instance, we are not required to:

 

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have a majority of our board of directors be independent;

 

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have a compensation committee or a nominating or corporate governance committee;

 

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have regularly scheduled executive sessions with only non-management directors;

 

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have an executive session of solely independent directors each year; or

 

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adopt and disclose a code of business conduct and ethics for directors, officers and employees.

For more information, see “Item 6. Directors, Senior Management and Employees — A. Directors and Senior Management.” We have relied on and intend to continue to rely on some of these exemptions. As a result, you may not be provided with the benefits and protections of certain corporate governance requirements of the New York Stock Exchange.

 

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We are an “emerging growth company” and the reduced disclosure and attestation requirements applicable to emerging growth companies could make our ordinary shares less attractive to investors.

We are an “emerging growth company” (an “EGC”), as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (the “JOBS Act”), and we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not EGCs, including not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for up to five fiscal years after our initial public offering in September 2017. Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act would otherwise require our independent registered public accounting firm to attest to and report on the effectiveness our internal control structure and procedures for financial reporting.

In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an EGC may take advantage of the extended transition period provided in Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act for complying with new or revised accounting standards. In other words, an EGC may delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have elected not to take advantage of the benefits of this extended transition period and, therefore, are subject to the same new or revised accounting standards as other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. This election is irrevocable.

We will cease to be an EGC upon the earliest of: (1) the last day of the fiscal year during which we have revenue of $1.07 billion or more, (2) the last day of the fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of our initial public offering in September 2017, (3) the date on which we have issued more than $1 billion in non-convertible debt during the previous three-year period, or (4) when we become a “large accelerated filer,” as defined in Rule 12b-2 under the Exchange Act.

The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources and distract our management.

As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act and requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act applicable to a foreign private issuer and EGC. These requirements may place a strain on our systems and resources. The Exchange Act requires that we file annual and current reports with respect to our business and financial condition. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial reporting. To maintain and improve the effectiveness of our disclosure and internal controls and procedures, we need to commit significant resources, potentially hire additional staff and provide additional management oversight. We are implementing additional procedures and processes for the purpose of addressing the standards and requirements applicable to public companies. In addition, sustaining our growth also will require us to commit additional management, operational and financial resources to identify new professionals to join our Company and to maintain appropriate operational and financial systems to adequately support expansion. These activities may divert management’s attention from other business concerns, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

We may lose our foreign private issuer status in the future, which could result in significant additional costs and expenses.

We are a “foreign private issuer,” as such term is defined under the Securities Act, and, therefore, we are not required to comply with all the periodic disclosure and current reporting requirements of the Exchange Act and related rules and regulations. Under the Securities Act, the determination of foreign private issuer status is made annually on the last business day of an issuer’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter and, accordingly, the next determination will be made with respect to us on June 30, 2019.

In the future, we would lose our foreign private issuer status if a majority of our shareholders, directors or management are U.S. citizens or residents and we fail to meet additional requirements necessary to avoid loss of foreign private issuer status. Although we have elected to comply with certain U.S. regulatory provisions, our loss of foreign private issuer status would make such provisions mandatory. If we are not a foreign private issuer, we will be required to file periodic reports and registration statements on U.S. domestic issuer forms with the SEC, which are more detailed and extensive than the forms available to a foreign private issuer. For example, the annual report on Form 10-K requires domestic issuers to disclose executive compensation information on an individual basis with specific disclosure regarding the domestic compensation philosophy, objectives, annual total compensation (base salary, bonus and equity compensation) and potential payments in connection with change in control, retirement, death or disability, while the annual report on Form 20-F permits foreign private issuers to disclose compensation information on an aggregate basis. We will also have to mandatorily comply with U.S. federal proxy requirements, and our executive officers, directors and principal shareholders will become subject to the short-swing profit disclosure and recovery provisions of Section 16 of the Exchange Act. We may also be required to modify certain of our policies to comply with good governance practices associated with U.S. domestic issuers. In addition, we may lose our ability to rely upon exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements on U.S. stock exchanges that are available to foreign private issuers. Such transition and modifications will involve additional costs and may divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

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Any failure to maintain an effective system of internal controls may result in material misstatements of our consolidated financial statements or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations or fail to prevent fraud; and in that case, our shareholders could lose confidence in our financial reporting, which would harm our business and could negatively impact the price of our ordinary shares.

Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or Section 404, we are required to furnish a report by our senior management on our internal control over financial reporting. However, while we remain an EGC we are not required to include an attestation report on internal control over financial reporting issued by our independent registered public accounting firm. To prepare for eventual compliance with Section 404, once we no longer qualify as an EGC, we are engaged in a process to document and validate through testing that our internal controls are functioning as documented and implementing a continuous reporting and improvement process for internal controls over financial reporting, which is both costly and challenging. In this regard, we will need to continue to dedicate internal resources, potentially engage outside consultants, adopt a detailed work plan to assess and document the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, continue steps to improve control processes as appropriate. Despite our efforts, there is a risk that we will not be able to conclude, within the prescribed timeframe or at all, that our internal control over financial reporting is effective as required by Section 404. If we identify one or more material weaknesses, it could result in an adverse reaction in the financial markets due to a loss of confidence in the reliability of our financial statements.

Effective internal controls are necessary for us to provide reliable and accurate financial reports on a timely basis and prevent fraud. If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls, we might not be able to report our financial results accurately or on a timely basis or prevent fraud; and in that case, our shareholders could lose confidence in our financial reporting or we could be sanctioned by the SEC, which would harm our business and could negatively impact the price of our ordinary shares. While we believe that we have sufficient personnel and review procedures to allow us to maintain an effective system of internal controls, we cannot provide assurance that we will not experience potential material weaknesses in our internal control. Even if we conclude that our internal control over financial reporting provides reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of consolidated financial statements for external purposes in accordance with GAAP, because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect fraud or misstatements. Failure to implement required new or improved controls, or difficulties encountered in their implementation, could harm our results of operations or cause us to fail to meet our future reporting obligations.

Future issuances of our ordinary or other classes of shares may cause a dilution in your shareholding.

We may raise additional funding to meet our working capital, capital expenditure requirements for our planned long-term capital needs, or to fund future acquisitions. If such funding is raised through issuance of new equity or equity-linked securities, it may cause a dilution in the percentage ownership of our then existing shareholders.

From time to time we may grant equity-based compensation to our management and employees, which may dilute the value of your ordinary shares.

From time to time, we may grant options or other equity-based compensation to our management and employees.

 

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As of the date of this Annual Report, we have reserved 4,861,777 ordinary shares for issuance under our 2016 Stock Incentive Plan, of which 2,978,499 stock options were issuable upon the exercise of outstanding equity awards and 1,422,747 RSUs were authorized for granting by our board on March 1, 2018. Furthermore, under our 2015 Stock Option Plan, we also granted 90,626 RSUs, which are all vested. For more information about our equity-based compensation, see “Item 6. Directors, Senior Management and Employees — B. Compensation.”

If our board of directors approves the issuance of new equity incentive plans (or the issuance of additional shares under the existing equity incentive plans), the interests of other shareholders may be diluted.

If securities or industry research analysts do not publish or cease publishing research or reports about our business or if they issue unfavorable commentary or downgrade our ordinary shares, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our ordinary shares will rely in part on the research and reports that securities and industry research analysts publish about us, our industry and our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. Our stock price and trading volumes could decline if one or more securities or industry analysts downgrade our ordinary shares, issue unfavorable commentary about us, our industry or our business, cease to cover us or fail to regularly publish reports about us, our industry or our business.

Investors may have difficulty enforcing judgments against us, our directors and management.

We are incorporated under the laws of the BVI and many of our directors and officers reside outside the United States. Moreover, many of these persons do not have significant assets in the United States. As a result, it may be difficult or impossible to effect service of process within the United States upon these persons, or to recover against us or them on judgments of U.S. courts, including judgments predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws.

Furthermore, our memorandum and articles of association include an exclusive jurisdiction clause pursuant to which, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, (i) other than claims specified in clause (ii) below and except as may otherwise be expressly agreed between the Company and a shareholder or between two or more shareholders in relation to the Company, we and all our shareholders agree that the BVI courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine all disputes of any kind regarding us and shareholders’ respective investments in us, irrevocably submit to the jurisdiction of the BVI courts, irrevocably waive any objection to the BVI courts being nominated as the forum to hear and determine any such dispute, and undertake and agree not to claim any such court is not a convenient or appropriate forum; and (ii) the federal district courts of the United States of America shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act, in each case unless our board of directors consents in writing to the selection of an alternative forum.

An award of punitive damages under a U.S. court judgment based upon U.S. federal securities laws is likely to be construed by BVI courts to be penal in nature and therefore unenforceable in the BVI. Further, no claim may be brought in the BVI against us or our directors and officers in the first instance for violation of U.S. federal securities laws because these laws have no extraterritorial application under BVI law and do not have force of law in the BVI. However, a BVI court may impose civil liability, including the possibility of monetary damages, on us or our directors and officers if the facts alleged in a complaint constitute or give rise to a cause of action under BVI law. Moreover, it is unlikely that a court in the BVI would award damages on the same basis as a foreign court if an action were brought in the BVI or that a BVI court would enforce foreign judgments if it viewed the judgment as inconsistent with BVI practice or public policy.

The courts of the BVI would not automatically enforce judgments of U.S. courts obtained in actions against us or our directors and officers, or some of the experts named herein, predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws, or entertain actions brought in the BVI against us or such persons predicated solely upon U.S. federal securities laws. Further, there is no treaty in effect between the United States and the BVI providing for the enforcement of judgments of U.S. courts in civil and commercial matters, and there are grounds upon which BVI courts may decline to enforce the judgments of U.S. courts. Some remedies available under the laws of U.S. jurisdictions, including remedies available under the U.S. federal securities laws, may not be allowed in the BVI courts if contrary to public policy in the BVI. Because judgments of U.S. courts are not automatically enforceable in the BVI, it may be difficult for you to recover against us or our directors and officers based upon such judgments.

Certain types of class or derivative actions generally available under U.S. law may not be available as a result of the fact that we are incorporated in the BVI and the exclusive jurisdiction clause included in our memorandum and articles of association. As a result, the rights of shareholders may be limited.

Shareholders of BVI companies may not have standing to initiate a shareholder derivative action in a court of the United States. Furthermore, our memorandum and articles of association include an exclusive jurisdiction clause which, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, will act as a bar to any such action in a court of the United States. In any event, the circumstances in which any such action may be brought, if at all, and the procedures and defenses that may be available in respect to any such action, may result in the rights of shareholders of a BVI company being more limited than those of shareholders of a company organized in the United States. Accordingly, shareholders may have fewer alternatives available to them if they believe that corporate wrongdoing has occurred. The BVI courts are also unlikely to recognize or enforce against us judgments of courts in the United States based on certain liability provisions of U.S. securities law or to impose liabilities against us, in original actions brought in the BVI, based on certain liability provisions of U.S. securities laws that are penal in nature.

 

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You may have more difficulty protecting your interests than you would as a shareholder of a U.S. corporation.

Our corporate affairs are governed by the provisions of our memorandum and articles of association, as amended and restated from time to time, and by the provisions of applicable BVI law. The rights of shareholders and the fiduciary responsibilities of our directors and officers under BVI law are not as clearly established as they would be under statutes or judicial precedents in some jurisdictions in the United States, and some states (such as Delaware) have more fully developed and judicially interpreted bodies of corporate law.

These rights and responsibilities are to a large extent governed by the BVI Business Companies Act, 2004 as amended from time to time (the “BVI Act”) and the common law of the BVI. The common law of the BVI is derived in part from judicial precedent in the BVI as well as from English common law, which has persuasive, but not binding, authority on a court in the BVI. In addition, BVI law does not make a distinction between public and private companies and some of the protections and safeguards (such as statutory pre-emption rights, save to the extent expressly provided for in the memorandum and articles of association) that investors may expect to find in relation to a public company are not provided for under BVI law.

There may be less publicly available information about us than is regularly published by or about U.S. issuers. Also, the BVI regulations governing the securities of BVI companies may not be as extensive as those in effect in the United States, and the BVI law and regulations regarding corporate governance matters may not be as protective of minority shareholders as state corporation laws in the United States. Therefore, you may have more difficulty protecting your interests in connection with actions taken by our directors and officers or our principal shareholders than you would as a shareholder of a corporation incorporated in the United States.

The laws of BVI provide limited protections for minority shareholders, so minority shareholders will not have the same options as to recourse in comparison to the United States if the shareholders are dissatisfied with the conduct of our affairs.

Under the laws of the BVI there is limited statutory protection of minority shareholders other than the provisions of the BVI Act dealing with shareholder remedies. The principal protections under BVI statutory law are derivative actions, actions brought by one or more shareholders for relief from unfair prejudice, oppression and unfair discrimination and/or to enforce the BVI Act or the memorandum and articles of association. Shareholders are entitled to have the affairs of the company conducted in accordance with the BVI Act and the memorandum and articles of association, and are entitled to payment of the fair value of their respective shares upon dissenting from certain enumerated corporate transactions. For more information, see “Item 10. Additional Information — Memorandum and Articles of Association” and “Item 16G. Corporate Governance — Differences in Corporate Law” below.

There are common law rights for the protection of shareholders that may be invoked, largely dependent on English company law, since the common law of the BVI is limited. Under the general rule pursuant to English company law known as the rule in Foss v. Harbottle, a court will generally refuse to interfere with the management of a company at the insistence of a minority of its shareholders who express dissatisfaction with the conduct of the company’s affairs by the majority or the board of directors. However, every shareholder is entitled to seek to have the affairs of the company conducted properly according to law and the constitutional documents of the company. As such, if those who control the company have persistently disregarded the requirements of company law or the provisions of the company’s memorandum and articles of association, then the courts may grant relief. Generally, the areas in which the courts will intervene are the following: (i) a company is acting or proposing to act illegally or beyond the scope of its authority; (ii) the act complained of, although not beyond the scope of the authority, could only be effected if duly authorized by more than the number of votes which have actually been obtained; (iii) the individual rights of the plaintiff shareholder have been infringed or are about to be infringed; or (iv) those who control the company are perpetrating a “fraud on the minority.”

These rights may be more limited than the rights afforded to minority shareholders under the laws of states in the United States.

We have no current plans to pay any cash dividends on our ordinary shares.

We currently intend to retain our future earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business. As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of our ordinary shares are likely to be your sole source of gain for the foreseeable future. Consequently, in the foreseeable future, you will likely only experience a gain from your investment in our ordinary shares if the trading price of our ordinary shares increases.

 

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Anti-takeover provisions in our Shareholder Agreements and memorandum and articles of association might discourage, delay or prevent acquisition or other change of control attempts for us that you and/or other of our shareholders might consider favorable.

Certain provisions of our Shareholder Agreements and memorandum and articles of association may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control of our Company or management that shareholders may consider favorable, including but not limited to the following provisions:

Pursuant to our Shareholder Agreements:

 

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Until September 19, 2020, we may not directly or indirectly issue or transfer any of our securities to certain specified entities that conduct business in the travel industry, and certain of our existing shareholders and their affiliates are also precluded from directly or indirectly transferring any of our securities to such entities, subject to limited exceptions.

 

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Expedia has agreed not to acquire more than 35% of the voting or economic power of our outstanding shares prior to September 19, 2020 except by means of a tender offer that, if consummated, would result in Expedia being the beneficial owner of more than 75% of the voting or economic power of our outstanding shares entitled to vote in the election of the board of directors.

Pursuant to our memorandum and articles of association:

 

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Our board of directors may without prior notice to shareholders, or obtaining any shareholder approval, amend our memorandum and articles of association to authorize and subsequently issue an unlimited number of preferred shares in one or more classes and series and designate the issue prices, rights, preferences, privileges, restrictions and terms of such preferred shares.

 

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Our board of directors is currently made up of six directors divided into three classes. Other than the initial terms of each class, (the first of which expire at the Company’s annual meeting in 2021 and the second and third of which will expire at the Company’s annual meeting in 2019 and 2020, respectively), directors in each class will have a term of three years. The only circumstance in which shareholders can elect new directors is at an annual meeting and in respect of those board seats whose term is expiring at the annual meeting. Elections will take place by plurality voting. Shareholders do not have the power to increase or reduce the size of the board or fill a vacancy on the board, which matters are the exclusive authority of our board of directors.

 

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Our shareholders may only remove directors for cause and only by resolution approved by shareholders holding not less than two-thirds of the voting rights at a meeting of shareholders called for the stated purpose of removing the director.

 

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There are a number of restrictions, conditions and other requirements (including advance notice period requirements) that apply to our shareholders’ ability to (i) request special meetings of our shareholders; (ii) nominate persons for election as directors at annual meetings of our shareholders; and (iii) propose other items of business or other matters for consideration at any annual or special meetings of our shareholders.

 

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All resolutions of the shareholders must be adopted at a meeting of our shareholders convened in accordance with our memorandum and articles of association. Shareholders are prohibited from adopting resolutions by written consent.

 

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There are restrictions on amending our memorandum and articles of association. Certain provisions of our memorandum and articles of association (including many of the provisions described above) may only be amended with the approval of both our shareholders and our board of directors. Provisions that may be amended by the shareholders without board approval require the affirmative vote of holders of two-thirds of the shares entitled to vote on the resolution.

For more information on our Shareholder Agreements, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions—B. Related Party Transactions.” For more information on our memorandum and articles of association, see “Item 10. Additional Information—Memorandum and Articles of Association” and “Item 16G. Corporate Governance—Differences in Corporate Law.”

These provisions and other provisions under BVI law could discourage, delay or prevent potential takeover attempts and other transactions involving a change in control of our Company, including actions that our shareholders may deem advantageous. As such, these provisions may reduce the price that investors might be willing to pay for our ordinary shares in the future and negatively affect the trading price of our ordinary shares.

 

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ITEM 4.

INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY

 

A.	History and Development of the Company

Despegar.com, Corp. was formed as a business company incorporated in the BVI on February 10, 2017. On May 3, 2017, the stockholders of our predecessor, Decolar.com, Inc., a Delaware corporation, exchanged their shares for ordinary shares of Despegar.com, Corp. to create a new BVI holding company. Following the exchange, our shareholders own shares of Despegar.com, Corp., and Decolar.com, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Despegar.com, Corp.

We are known by our two brands, Despegar, our global brand, and Decolar, our Brazilian brand.

Our principal executive office is located at Juana Manso 999, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina C1107CBR, and our telephone number is: +54 11 4894 3500. Our agent for service of process in the United States is Cogency Global Inc., located at 10 E. 40th Street, 10th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

 

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Our History and Development

Our business has grown substantially in revenue, products and geographic scope since launching in 1999. The following table shows the timeline of key milestones:

 

1999		•  Launched site in Argentina
2000		•  Launched sites in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay
2001		•  Launched sites in the United States and Venezuela
2007		•  Launched site in Peru
2009		•  Expanded our offering to include hotels
		•  Launched sites in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Puerto Rico
2010		•  Launched sites in El Salvador and Honduras, reaching our 20th market
		•  Cumulative one million customers served
2012		•  Launched our mobile apps on Android and iOS
		•  Expanded offering to include packages, rental cars and cruise products
2013		•  Reached one million downloads of our mobile app
		•  Expanded our offering to include destination services
		•  Expanded hotel offering to include vacation rentals
2014		•  Cumulative 10 million customers served
		•  Our mobile app is included in the iTunes Store’s “Best of 2014”
		•  Launched travel affiliates program
		•  Expanded our offering to include travel insurance
2015		•  Reached 10 million downloads of our mobile app
		•  Completed migration from call center sales to fully online model
		•  Deepened strategic partnership with Expedia, including its equity investment in our Company
2016		•  Awarded “E-commerce Leader in the Tourism Industry in LATAM” by the Latin American E-Commerce Institute
		•  Expanded our offering to include our bus product
		•  Expanded our destination services offering to include our local concierge product
2017		•  Initial public offering and listing on the New York Stock Exchange
2018		•  Launched of sales call centers in Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil •  Development of Tour Operation Business
2019		•  Completed rebranding our core business, including logos, website and images in order to update our outward facing content

 

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•

Announced our acquisition of Viajes Falabella in Chile, Colombia, Peru and Argentina, together with the license to use the Viajes Falabella brand name total consideration of $27 million, subject to certain closing conditions

Capital Expenditures

See “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—C. Research and Development, Patents and Licenses.”

 

B.	Business Overview

Overview

We are the leading online travel company in Latin America, known by our two brands, Despegar, our global brand, and Decolar, our Brazilian brand. We have a comprehensive product offering, including airline tickets, packages, hotels and other travel-related products, which enables consumers to find, compare, plan and purchase travel products easily through our marketplace. We provide our network of travel suppliers a technology platform for managing the distribution of their products and access to our users. We believe that our focus on the underpenetrated Latin American online travel market, our knowledge of the consumer and supplier landscape in the region and our ability to manage the business successfully through economic cycles will allow us to continue our industry leadership. In 2018 and 2017, we had approximately 5.3 million and 4.6 million unique customers, generating $530.6 million and $523.9 million in revenue, respectively. Our gross bookings were $4.4 billion and $4.7 billion in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Local currencies were converted to US dollars using an annual (August 2017 – August 2018) exchange rate, based on the August 2018 publication of Euromonitor’s annual Travel & Tourism report.

Latin America online travel bookings were approximately $46 billion and $41 billion in 2018 and 2017, respectively, and are expected to grow to approximately $71 billion (in current terms) by 2022, representing an estimated compound annual growth rate (“CAGR”) of 11.6% for the period 2018 – 2022, according to Euromonitor International. In 2018, 42% of all travel bookings were done online, a percentage that is expected to increase to approximately 50% in 2022. Factors driving the growth in online travel bookings include the increase of internet penetration, further adoption of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices and a growing middle class with greater access to banking services and credit products, together enabling a larger segment of the growing population to transact online or on mobile devices.

Latin America online travel bookings were approximately $41 billion in 2018 when using an annual (January 2018 – December 2018) exchange rate from Bloomberg.

The Latin American travel industry is characterized by significant fragmentation in suppliers across airlines, hotels and other travel products. This fragmentation is compounded by regional complexities, including differences in language, local customs, travel preferences, currencies and regulatory regimes across the more than 40 countries in the region. These factors create challenges for suppliers to reach customers directly and, consequently, create a significant market opportunity for us.

We believe we have the broadest travel portfolio among OTAs in Latin America, with inventory from global suppliers, including over 270 airlines and over 512,960 hotels, as well as approximately 1,190 car rental agencies and approximately 326 destination services suppliers with more than 5,690 activities. Our business benefits from network effects: our large customer base helps us to attract additional travel suppliers and, in turn, a larger network of travel suppliers helps us to attract new customers by enhancing our product offering. Additionally, as we continue to grow our marketplace, we are increasingly able to offer more competitive pricing and product availability to our customers as well as enhance the effectiveness of our marketing strategy.

We launched our award-winning mobile travel app in 2012 and it is an increasingly important part of our business, as it allows consumers to access and browse our real-time inventory, compare prices and transact through their mobile devices quickly. As of December 31, 2018, our apps have more than 59.4 million cumulative downloads from the iOS App Store and Google Play (21,3 million of which were downloaded in the last two years) and we believe they are the most downloaded OTA apps in Latin America. During 2018 and 2017, mobile accounted for approximately 61% and 54%, respectively, of all of our user visits, and approximately 34% and 28%, respectively, of our transactions were purchased on our mobile platform, complementing our desktop website traffic. As internet, smartphone and other mobile device penetration continue to increase, we believe that our strength in mobile will continue to be a strategic advantage.

 

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Through mobile and online marketing, brand promotion and cross-marketing, we have created strong brand recognition among Latin America travelers, which we view as one of our key competitive advantages. According to data from Google Adwords, Despegar and Decolar had the highest brand recognition among OTAs in Latin America. To date, we have invested more than $1.3 billion in marketing and branding initiatives promoting our brand, which we believe, combined with the quality of the service we have delivered over the years, has made us a trusted brand with our customers. In 2018 and 2017, 71.8% and 64.4% of our customers had completed previous purchases on our platform, respectively.

Travel Market Opportunity in Latin America

Latin America is one of the largest and most diverse regions in the world. Comprised of over 40 countries with a total population of over 600 million, the region encompasses multiple languages, currencies and regulatory regimes. The travel market serving Latin American consumers presents a significant opportunity for us due to its large market size, highly fragmented base of travel suppliers and rapid growth in the adoption of technology-based solutions for consumers and travel suppliers. In addition, long-term favorable macroeconomic trends in the region have contributed to the expansion of the middle class and increased consumption in the region.

Large and Growing Travel Industry

Latin American travel bookings (both online and offline) represented an estimated $109 billion market in 2018 and it is expected to grow to approximately $143 billion by 2022, according to Euromonitor. This represents an estimated CAGR of 7.0% for the period 2018 – 2022. In 2018, airline bookings for Latin America were $45 billion while lodging bookings recorded $53 billion. Car rental and attractions bookings in Latin America combined reached $11 billion in 2018.

Latin American travel bookings (both online and offline) represented an estimated $97 billion market in 2018 when using an annual (January 2018 – December 2018) exchange rate from Bloomberg.

Overview of Suppliers in the Latin American Travel Industry

The Latin American travel industry is characterized by significant supplier fragmentation across airlines, hotels and other travel products. Regional complexities, including differences in language, local customs, travel preferences, currencies and regulatory regimes across the more than 40 countries in the region create challenges for suppliers to reach customers directly, at scale and across the region. Further driving this fragmentation is the growing number of smaller airlines, including low-cost airlines that have been commencing operation in recent years. Today, travel agencies are the leading distribution channel in the region for airlines, due to their ability to provide greater selection and scale across the region.

We believe that due to a lack of scale or unified brand, other travel services in Latin America tend to be even more fragmented, operating in specific cities or countries.

Trends Driving Online Travel and Our Growth

An expanding and evolving travel market, coupled with greater internet, smartphone and other mobile device penetration, is expected to drive robust growth in online travel bookings in Latin America. Latin America online travel bookings were approximately $46 billion and $41 billion in 2018 and 2017, respectively, and are expected to grow to approximately $71 billion (in constant terms) by 2022, representing an estimated CAGR of 11.6% for the period 2018 – 2022, according to Euromonitor. In 2018, 42% of all travel bookings were done online, a percentage that is expected to increase to approximately 50% in 2022. As consumers shift to researching and booking travel online, travel suppliers have adapted their offerings and deepened their relationships with online marketing and booking channels, such as OTAs, to generate revenue. OTAs provide travel suppliers with scale and distribution into new and existing markets and 24/7 customer service and localization services, including language and payment capabilities.

Factors driving the growth in online travel include:

 

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Increasing internet penetration. While internet penetration in Latin America has increased, we believe it has substantial room for growth. As internet penetration increases, Latin American consumers are increasingly using the internet to research and purchase products, including travel.

 

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Increasing adoption of mobile devices, including smartphones. The number of unique mobile subscribers, in Latin America is expected to grow by approximately 110 million new unique subscribers, according to the GSM Association, bringing the total to approximately 524 million in the region by 2020. With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, mobile has become a prominent tool for travelers to search, discover and purchase travel services.

 

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Superior user experience. Online travel booking channels, which include websites and mobile apps, empower travelers to search products and user-generated reviews and easily compare real-time availability and pricing options from multiple travel providers simultaneously, which we believe leads to higher user engagement and customer conversion.

 

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Growth in banked consumers and proliferation of credit products. With the continued development of the Latin American economy, a larger portion of the population has opened bank accounts, enabling access to new forms of payments including credit cards and other financial products. With the increased number of consumers with bank and credit card accounts, more people have the ability to make purchases online. Access to bank accounts and credit cards also gives consumers access to additional financing options from banks, such as payment by installments.

As the leading OTA in Latin America, we believe we are well positioned to succeed as consumers’ destination of choice for fast, easily searchable and more transparent travel research and shopping. As our market share grows, we are increasingly able to capture significant amounts of customer data including travel history and preferences and serve personalized recommendations to drive higher customer conversion. Additionally, we are able to provide better pricing through scale and by bundling multiple travel products together in a single offer.

In addition to the foregoing, in April 2019 we announced our acquisition of Viajes Falabella in Chile, Colombia, Peru and Argentina, together with the license to use the Viajes Falabella brand name total consideration of US $27 million. The transaction assumes the transfer of these operations free of any financial debt. With this agreement, we anticipate clients of both companies will have access to an enhanced travel and tourism product and service offering, through an alternative service models (online, call center and assetlight physical stores). In addition, customers will be able to access exclusive discounts, earn double CMR Points Falabella’s loyalty program, both at Viajes Falabella and Despegar, as well as an expanded product offering in exchange for CMR Points at Viajes Falabella.

Our Competitive Strengths

We are the leading OTA in Latin America, offering our customers a broad and diversified selection of travel products at attractive prices. Our leadership position is a result of our following core strengths:

Industry Leader in Latin America

With our launch in 1999, we have benefited from an early mover advantage in Latin America, which has allowed us to achieve significant scale and brand awareness. In 2018 and 2017, we had approximately 5.3 million and 4.6 million unique customers, primarily in Latin America, generating $530.6 million and $523.9 million in revenue and approximately $4.7 billion and $4.4 billion, respectively, in gross bookings.

We have established relationships with a large network of travel suppliers in Latin America and we have become the leading online air ticketing provider in Latin America, having sold approximately 19% and 17% of all airline tickets purchased through GDS in the region during 2018 and 2017, respectively, according to Amadeus. Additionally, we believe we provide our customers with the largest travel portfolio among Latin American OTAs, with access to over 270 global airlines and over 512,960 hotels globally as well as approximately 1,190 car rental agencies and approximately 326 destination services suppliers with more than 5,690 activities. Additionally, we have accumulated approximately fourteen million user-generated reviews in total as of December 31, 2018, of which 4.2 million and 2.1 million were submitted in 2018 and 2017, respectively, which we believe drive user engagement. Our platform is also of increasing importance to airlines based outside of Latin America, which generally have a limited local presence in the region, and which account for over 70% of the outbound international travel booked on our platform. Such international travel is more attractive because of its price point and higher commission structure.

Our technology platform allows us to offer our customers the ability to create custom packages of two or more products, such as a combination of airfare and a hotel booking for a particular trip, allowing us to offer customers lower combined prices that may not be available for individual products. We are also able to better cross-sell multiple travel products and provide customers with a comprehensive solution for their travel needs.

We benefit from network effects: our large customer base helps us to attract additional travel suppliers and, in turn, a larger network of travel suppliers helps us to attract new customers by enhancing our product offering. Furthermore, by growing our user base and aggregating different products from our supplier base, we are able to offer attractive pricing and availability of travel products to our customers as well as enhance the effectiveness of our marketing strategy.

Strong Brand Recognition and Awareness

Despegar, our global brand, and Decolar, our Brazilian brand, have leading brand awareness in online travel in key markets, including Brazil and Argentina. According to search engine trend data that is based on the relative number of searches of brand related keywords on Google during 2018, we had an approximate 26% share (as compared with what we believe to be the next five largest competitors in the market) in Latin America.

 

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Local Market Expertise and Leadership

We have a strong track record in Latin America, with a point of sale in 20 markets, representing 95% of the region’s population, and with a leading OTA presence in key markets such as Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia. In our two largest markets, Brazil and Argentina, we have operated for 19 and 20 years, respectively. Our knowledge of local consumers, and their buying patterns and travel preferences, as well as our ability to offer financing through our relationships with financial institutions, have enabled us to serve our customers more effectively than global competitors from outside the region. Furthermore, our extensive supplier relationships allow us to offer a greater scale and breadth of offerings than smaller, local competitors. We understand the objectives of, and challenges faced by, Latin American travel suppliers and we are well-positioned to address those challenges by helping the suppliers grow their businesses, all to the benefit of consumers who receive more choice at attractive pricing.

As the leading Latin American OTA, we have developed long-standing relationships with a wide range of local banks to offer installment payment plans to their credit card holders as an alternative purchase option. We believe that local banks look to partner with us because of our scale, access to our online audience and high transaction volume. We believe this differentiates us from other local and global travel agencies as those agencies either do not offer installment plans or offer installment plans from a more limited selection of financing providers or in a more limited selection of countries. We believe our portfolio of installment plans is a meaningful driver of traffic to our platform as well as conversion. Approximately 55% and 57% of our transactions in both 2017 and 2018 were paid by installment. Our agreements with local banks allow us to offer installment plans without assuming collection risk from the customer.

Leading Mobile Offering

Mobile is an increasingly important part of our business, as consumers are quickly able to access and browse our real-time travel offerings, compare prices and make purchases through their mobile devices. We launched our leading mobile travel apps in 2012. As of December 31, 2018, our mobile apps have more than 59.4 million cumulative downloads from the iOS App Store and Google Play (21.3 million of which were downloaded in the last two years). In addition, our iOS App Store and Google Play apps were rated 4.6 and 4.4. stars as of December 31, 2018. During 2018 and 2017, mobile, which includes both mobile web and our mobile apps, accounted for approximately 61% and 54%, respectively, of all of our user visits, and approximately 34% and 28%, respectively, of our transactions. In addition, transactions via mobile increased by approximately 36% from 2017 compared to 2018. We continue to provide innovative features and functionality to consumers through our mobile apps, including push notifications, dynamic updates, inventory alerts and personalized promotions as well as in-app customer service. Our customers using mobile devices have historically made more repeat transactions than customers using desktop computers. Additionally, our mobile presence allows in-destination marketing, which facilitates cross-selling of additional travel products, such as rental cars and destination services to customers, after they have arrived at their destination.

Many of our customers use their mobile device to search for travel products but complete their transactions on their desktop. However, as mobile purchasing becomes increasingly prevalent in the region, we believe our award-winning mobile platform, coupled with the widespread adoption of our apps, positions us well for an increasingly mobile future.

Powerful Data and Analytics Platform

Our large web and mobile audience and transaction volume generate a significant amount of data that allows us to better understand our customers and provide personalized travel offerings and also helps us to drive our sales, marketing and operational strategy. To offer the most effective content and products for each customer, we extensively analyze the data we collect to identify and highlight the most valuable products and destinations in each customer interaction. By gathering and analyzing data in real-time, we are quickly able to assess and react to changes in customer behavior, market pricing and other market dynamics. Currently, the majority of visitors to our platform see a personalized landing page based on such factors as user account information, past search and purchasing history and geolocation. We believe that this personalization of the user experience increases engagement and likelihood of purchase.

Effective Marketing Capabilities

We have invested significant resources in our marketing team, which we believe is a significant driver of our business. Through our vertically-integrated, in-house marketing team, we are able to control all aspects of our budget, marketing campaigns and market analytics, without the need for agencies or external consultants. Our marketing team’s local knowledge and expertise in our key markets have allowed us to develop direct relationships with a broad range of local and regional media providers and purchase media directly, avoiding more costly intermediaries. We have invested in our own creative, production and media execution teams, who are quickly able to adapt our marketing strategy, while also leveraging our extensive data and analytics capabilities for more precise audience targeting. Furthermore, we have developed our own software platform for managing our search optimization capabilities, allowing us to tailor messages effectively for specific target markets and customers.

 

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Proven and Experienced Team

Our management team has significant experience in the travel sector and across a variety of industries in Latin America. Members of our management team have worked at organizations such as Kimberly-Clark, LATAM Airlines, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, PwC and Thales, among others. In addition to our management team, we have an extensive technology team including more than 1000 developers and technology professionals. By fostering a distinctive, collaborative and high-performance working culture, we attract software developers with world-class talent and offer an engaging working environment for ongoing career development. We believe we are perceived as a top talent recruiter for IT professionals in Latin America, allowing us to attract the highest quality professionals and specialists dedicated to the enhancement of our platform.

Our Customers

We had approximately 5.3 million and 4.6 million unique customers for 2018 and 2017, respectively, primarily in Latin America. Our customers are primarily from Latin America traveling domestically within their own country of origin, to other countries in the Latin American region, and outside of Latin America. Most of our customers are traveling for leisure, although we do have some independent business travelers as well.

Our Products

We offer a wide range of travel and travel-related products catering to the needs of Latin Americans traveling domestically within their own country of origin, to other countries in the Latin American region and outside of Latin America. We provide these travelers with the comprehensive tools and information, in multiple languages, that they need to research, plan, book and purchase travel products efficiently. That information includes approximately 8 million user-generated reviews from the last 3 years, in total as of December 31, 2018, of which 4.2 million and 2.1 million were submitted in 2018 and 2017, respectively. We organize our business into two segments: (1) Air, which consists of the sale of airline tickets, and (2) Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products, which consists of travel packages (which can include airline tickets and hotel rooms), as well as stand-alone sales of hotel rooms (including vacation rentals), car rentals, bus tickets, cruise tickets, travel insurance and destination services. We offer our products online through our website and mobile applications, and use data and analytics to personalize the customer experience on our platform, based on geolocation, past search and purchasing history and social network interactions, which we believe increases engagement and likelihood of purchase.

Air

Through our Air segment, we offer airline tickets, primarily targeted at leisure travelers in Latin America, including travel domestically, to other countries in the region and outside of Latin America. Our Air segment includes airline tickets purchased on a stand-alone basis but excludes airline tickets that are packaged with other non-airline flight products. Our customers booked approximately 5.9 million, 5.3 million and 4.3 million transactions in our Air segment using our platform in 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

We provide our customers with access to over 270 full service and low-cost airlines. We obtain inventory from these airlines either through a GDS or, primarily in the case of low cost airlines, via direct connections to the airlines’ booking systems. We believe our platform provides comprehensive information to our customers in a time efficient and transparent manner. Customers are quickly and easily able to evaluate a broad range of fares and airline combinations. Customers may search for flights based on their preferred travel dates, destinations, number of passengers, number of stops and class of travel, or they may use our more advanced search tool and include additional search parameters. Customers can also filter and sort the results of their search easily according to their preferences.

Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products

The total number of transactions in our Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products segment was 4.5 million, 3.8 million and 3.0 million in 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Packages

We offer travelers the opportunity to create custom packages by combining two or more travel products, such as airline tickets and hotel, airline tickets and car rental or hotel and car rental, and booking them in a single transaction. Combining multiple products into a package with a single quoted price allows us to offer customers lower prices than are available for individual products and also helps us to cross-sell multiple products in a single transaction.

Hotels

Through our platform, customers can search, compare and book reservations at more than 512.960 hotels globally through our direct network and third-party inventory. In addition, since 2013 our hotels offering includes vacation rentals.

 

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Customers may search for hotels based on their destination and preferred dates for check-in and checkout, and may filter and sort our search results easily by selecting star ratings, specific hotel chains and location.

Customers can also indicate amenity preferences such as business services, internet access, fitness centers, swimming pools and more. Customers can also view hotel pictures and read hotel reviews from other Despegar customers on our platform. Our platform features approximately fourteen million user-generated reviews in total as of December 31, 2018, of which 4.2 million and 2.1 million were generated in 2018 and 2017, respectively.

As of December 31, 2018, approximately 31,000 of our hotel suppliers in Latin America were directly connected to our booking system. Through these direct connections, our hotel suppliers allocate rooms to us either by managing their room inventory directly on an extranet supported by us, or on an extranet supported by one of our more than 42 third-party channel managers.

In 2018 and 2017, 9.2% and 9.1%, respectively, of our gross bookings were attributable to supply provided to us by affiliates of Expedia. Expedia, the beneficial owner of 13.9% of our ordinary shares outstanding as of December 31, 2018, holds certain rights in its capacity as a shareholder. For more information on our relationships with Expedia, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions —B. Related Party — Relationship with Expedia” for more information.

We typically do not assume inventory risk as we do not pre-purchase hotel room inventory from our hotel suppliers. Hotel suppliers are paid by one of two methods: “pre-pay” and “pay-at-destination.” Under the pre-pay model, the customer pays us at the time of booking and we pay the hotel after the customer checks out. Under the pay-at-destination model, the customer pays the hotel directly at checkout and we either receive our commission from the hotel or from the customer as a customer booking fee.

Other Travel Products

We also offer other travel products on our platform. We provide our customers access to approximately 1,190 car rental agencies, more than 180 bus carriers, 6 cruise carriers, approximately 326 destination services suppliers with more than 5,690 activities, and one travel insurance supplier. While we offer both pre-pay and pay-at-destination options for car rentals, the other travel products that we offer must be prepaid.

Destination Services: We offer in-destination services as an opportunity for us to offer attractions, tickets, tours and activities and local concierge services to package with other products and as a way to encourage in-destination transactions. The wide array of options offered is intended to suit varying budgets and preferences of potential customers.

Car Rentals: Currently, we offer car rentals worldwide, with a focus in Latin America and the United States.

Cruise Tickets: Currently, cruise tickets are available to customers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. We currently have relationships with six cruise carriers.

Travel Insurance: We offer travel insurance through one third-party provider in Latin America, Assist Card, which whom we entered into an exclusivity agreement in 2017. Customers can choose from a range of coverage options depending on their particular needs, such as medical insurance and lost or damaged baggage. Typically, this product is requested in conjunction with a flight and hotel booking. Prior to confirming and proceeding with the reservation of and payment for a flight or hotel booking or a package booking, our customers are offered the opportunity to purchase travel insurance.

Bus Tickets: Currently, bus tickets are available only in Brazil and Argentina, and we intend to expand our coverage further to major cities in Latin America. We currently have relationships with three suppliers that give us access to more than 182 bus carriers.

In addition, we sell digital advertising on our platform, which represents approximately 3% of our revenue annually.

Payment Options

Credit cards are the primary means of payment for products on our platform. We allow for the use of more than one credit card in a single transaction, permitting customers with lower credit limits to make larger purchases. We also offer other payment alternatives including debit cards as well as several localized payment options by market.

In addition, we have established agreements with a wide range of local and regional banks that allow their credit card holders to purchase our travel products via installment purchase plans, which we believe differentiates us from other global travel agencies which either do not offer installment plans or offer installment plans from a more limited selection of financing providers or in a more limited selection of countries. Local banks look to partner with us because of our scale, access to our online audience and high

 

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transaction volume. Credit card customers may choose from a range of installment plan offerings and terms from different financial institutions with which the customer holds or obtains a credit card. Many of these installment plan offerings are interest-free to the customer. Installment plans allow our customers to make larger purchases than they may otherwise be able to make in a single payment. Our agreements with local banks allow us to offer installment payment plans without assuming collection risk from the customer and receive payment in full (provided we choose not to factor such installment payments). When customers make purchases using installment plans, the facilitating bank bears the risk that the customer will make the required installment payments. In all markets except Brazil, we typically receive payment in less than one month after booking. In Brazil, we generally receive payment from the installment financing bank only after each scheduled payment due date from the customer (whether or not the customer makes the scheduled payments to the bank). In some cases, we elect to factor or discount these longer-term Brazilian installment receivables, allowing us to receive the payment of the purchase price more quickly. More than 55% of our transactions in both 2018 and 2017 were completed using an installment plan.

In Brazil, during 2018, we have started to work with a provider for purposes of financing purchases without credit card in up to twelve installments with an interest rate of 1.85% monthly for our customer. The provider bears the risk of payment and fraud. We have made this payment option available in 2018 for refundable hotels sold through our sales call center.

Marketing and Affiliates

Marketing

We execute a multi-channel marketing strategy. Through this effort, we have created a long-standing brand that is associated with superior travel products, high quality services and competitive prices in Latin America. We have an experienced in-house marketing team dedicated to delivering efficient allocation of time and resources across media channels, without relying on outside agencies or consultants. Our marketing strategy allowed as to increase, during 2018, 12% our total unique customers and a 27% our unique customers from mobile devices. Key elements of our marketing strategy include:

In-house Teams. We have teams dedicated to: audiovisual content generation across online and offline channels; negotiation with media and agencies to control budget; performance trends and market analysis through strong data analytics; and targeted campaign monitoring.

Buy Direct. Through our direct relationships with key media suppliers throughout Latin America, we believe we are able to secure highly competitive rates across the region, without unnecessary interaction with intermediaries.

“Always On” Strategy. We have 24/7 continuity of marketing campaigns through a combination of online, television, radio, print and other channels tailored for every country and market. We run campaigns to drive maximum awareness, and we use a multi-channel approach in our top markets.

Cross-Device Insights and Custom Attribution Model and Bidding Tools. We measure marketing success across all media channels and devices by reconstructing the user’s marketing path across devices and applying our custom attribution model that feeds our optimization strategy. We have also developed proprietary tools to optimize our investment in search engine marketing (“SEM”) campaigns for Google Adwords by tracking sources of traffic and attributing a percentage of conversions to each event in a user’s marketing path.

Focus on Efficient Use of Media. We continuously analyze the minimum frequency needed on each media channel to deliver targeted marketing messages, events and promotions to customers based on the specific demographics of each market.

Promotions and Sales. We focus aggressively on promotions including discounts, holiday campaigns and financing options. Our technology-driven marketing allows us to dynamically optimize promotions on a daily basis. Some of our recurring promotions are included below:

 

In addition, we have partnered with Mercado Libre, Latin America´s largest online marketplace, for the SiWeek promotion, which is a one-week promotion with our company and Mercado Libre offering attractive discounts. For us, this is an opportunity to increase sales as the promotion also appeals to the impulse traveler. We offered discounts of up to 60% for selected hotels, car rentals as well as financing options of up to 21 months to pay with no interest. It was available in Argentina, Brazil and Chile.

 

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Affiliates

We have relationships with a network of over 9,100 affiliates, including travel agents, airlines, websites and other third parties such as online and offline retailers, in seven countries across Latin America. Our agreements with these affiliates allows them to access our product inventory directly through our platform or through our application program interface (“API”). We believe our affiliate program is attractive because we provide access to a range of travel products that our affiliates otherwise may not be able to access cost-effectively or at all. Our affiliates earn commissions from us depending on country and type of products sold. Furthermore, our affiliate program allows us to expand our footprint in Latin America and distribution network in a cost-effective manner.

Sales call centers

In 2018, we launched call center operations through third parties in Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Through these call centers we sell all our products with the exception of buses, cruise lines and vacation rentals. We set forth our sales call number in the homepage of each website. We see this as a good opportunity to complement our online platform to gain new customers and interact with those who might not be digitally enabled. Our customers are quickly embracing this option as gross bookings from our sales call centers increased over 55% on average, quarter over quarter, totaling $70.2 million in 2018.

Customer Service

Customer experience is a key focus for our business and we believe this is reflected in our strong brand recognition and loyalty throughout Latin America. We emphasize providing personalized support throughout the customer purchase cycle, including automated web-based support and support from live customer service representatives.

In addition to our customer service centers in Brazil and Colombia, we rely on outsourced services to provide 24/7 support to our customers for issues that cannot be resolved through our platform. Our customer service facilities in Brazil are dedicated to our Portuguese-speaking customers, while our customer service facilities in Colombia serve Spanish-speaking customers. Many of our customer service staff at these facilities speak English in addition to Portuguese and/or Spanish. We also have a team of customer service staff dedicated specifically to addressing urgent customer needs, primarily those of customers that are in-destination.

To control expenditures related to customer support, we also outsource certain functions to international call center service providers. These outsourced customer service providers support our internal call center operations and improve our ability to support customers around the world.

We also have implemented comprehensive performance measures to monitor our calls to ensure that our customers receive quality service. In addition, as a part of our customer experience we maintain a database containing customer transactions and user preferences for each customer who has booked services through us in order to provide customized support and offerings in the future. We believe that the design of our existing systems can scale to meet further increases in call volume.

In addition, during 2018 we launched a service button on the mobile App which enables customers to reach our Company no matter where they are via VOIP or WI-FI at no cost.

As a result of our efforts we managed to increase our net promoter score (“NPS”) 432 basic points, up to 66% during 2018.

Technology and Data

We use our technology platform to improve the customer experience and optimize the efficiency of our business operations. We have successfully built an innovative technology culture that we believe is unique in Latin America and enables us to attract and retain some of the best talent in the region. We employ more than 1000 dedicated technology professionals. We actively recruit and train these highly-skilled technology professionals and many of our current technology managers started in our training program.

We own our technology platform, which is comprised of applications that we develop in-house using primarily open source software. Our technology team has adopted a continuous improvement, high-frequency testing approach to our business, aimed at improving both traffic and conversion rates, while maintaining reliability.

Our platform is engineered to provide a personalized and secure experience to our customers. We invest heavily in understanding our customers’ behavior and intentions through a combination of detailed behavioral data collection and machine learning algorithms. Our machine learning algorithms also help us detect fraud attempts. We collect, maintain and analyze behavioral data from all the devices our customers are using to interact with our platform. The insights derived from the analysis of this data form the basis of our enhanced conversion strategies. We use email, social media marketing and retargeting campaigns to remind customers of their searches.

 

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We believe our technology can scale to accommodate significantly higher volumes of site traffic, customers, bookings and the overall growth in our business. We routinely test and expand the capacity of our servers so we are prepared to provide our customers with uninterrupted access to our sites during periods with high levels of user traffic, such as when we are offering promotions. Our information technology platform employs a horizontal architecture, which allows us to increase our processing capacity by adding more hardware in parallel with our existing servers. With this structure, we can grow our platform to accommodate the growth of our business with minimal disruption to the operation of our customer-facing platform and without having to replace our existing equipment.

Our system has been designed around an open architecture with a focus on robust reliability to reduce downtime in the event of outages or catastrophic occurrences. Our platform provides 24/7 availability, except during twice-monthly planned maintenance periods. Our system hardware, which we own, is hosted by a third-party data center in Miami, Florida, which also provides redundant communications lines and emergency power backup.

We believe our technology infrastructure is an important asset due to its robustness, cost-effectiveness and scalability. We continuously evaluate, research and develop new services, platforms infrastructure, and software to improve and solidify our technological systems further and provide a reliable, personalized, fast and secure experience to our customers.

For more information, see “—Intellectual Property” and “Item 3. Key Information — D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—We may not be able to adequately protect and enforce our intellectual property rights; and we could potentially face claims alleging that our technologies infringe the property rights of others.”

Security, Privacy and Anti-Fraud

We are committed to operating a secure online business. We use various security methods in an effort to protect the integrity of our networks and the confidential data collected and stored on our servers. For example, we use firewalls to protect access to our networks and to the servers and databases on which we store confidential data; we restrict access to our network by virtual private network (“VPN”) with two-factor authentication and conduct periodic audits of data access and modifications of our network; and we use password-protected encryption technology to protect our communication channels and sensitive customer data. In addition, we have developed and use internal policies and procedures to protect the personal information of our customers, and we comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (“PCI DSS”). To enforce our security framework we have a dedicated cybersecurity team that conducts penetration testing and application security analysis, develops policies and standards, and ensures compliance with those policies and standards.

We believe that issues relating to privacy and the use of personally identifiable information are becoming increasingly important as the internet and its commercial use continue to grow. We have adopted what we believe is a detailed privacy policy that complies with local legal requirements in each of the Latin American countries in which we operate and outlines the information that we collect concerning our users and how we use it. Users must acknowledge and expressly agree to this policy when registering with our platform, signing up for our newsletters, or making a purchase.

Although we send marketing communications to our users periodically, we use our best efforts to ensure that we respect users’ communication preferences. For example, when users register with us, they can opt out of receiving marketing e-mails from us. Users can modify their communication preferences at any time in the “My Account” section of our sites.

We use information about our users for internal purposes in order to improve marketing and promotional efforts and in order to improve our content, product offerings and site layout. We may also disclose information about our users in response to legal requirements. All information is stored on our servers located in Miami, Florida.

Moreover, we are committed to detecting and deterring possible instances of fraudulent transactions before they are completed. The key components of our fraud-prevention strategy include: (1) a dedicated and specialized fraud prevention team that works closely with our IT staff; (2) engagement with key actors in the online travel industry, such as banks and airlines, which strengthens our early-detection capabilities, thereby reducing the exposure period to potential fraud events; and (3) machine learning systems that analyze multiple factors, including intelligence gathered from our industry relationships, to help us adapt better to changing market conditions and detect and address fraudulent transactions. Our in-house team works with third-party vendors, allowing us to leverage best practices and scale quickly.

 

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Competition

We operate in a highly competitive and evolving market. Travelers have a range of options, both online and offline, to research, find, compare, plan and book air, packages, hotels and other travel products.

Our competitors include:

 

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global OTAs with presence in Latin America, such as Booking.com and Expedia and travel metasearch sites;

 

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search websites and apps, such as Google and its travel businesses, and e-commerce and group buying websites and apps;

 

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alternative accommodation and vacation rental businesses, such as Airbnb;

 

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local offline travel agency chains and tour operators, such as CVC Brasil Operadora e Agência de Viagens; and

 

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smaller online travel agencies lacking a pan-regional presence.

In addition, our customers have the option to book travel directly with travel suppliers, including airlines, hotels and other travel service providers via online and offline channels. See “Item 3. Key Information — D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—We operate in a highly competitive and evolving market, and pressure from existing and new companies may adversely affect our business and results of operations” for more information.

We believe that the primary competitive factors in the travel industry, in particular as consumers increasingly research, plan and book travel online, are, among other things, brand recognition, price, availability and breadth of choice of travel services and products, customer service, ease of use, fees charged to travelers, accessibility and reliability. We believe our brands, scale, operational and technological capabilities, including our local knowledge and marketing expertise, provide us with a sustainable competitive advantage.

Intellectual Property

We regard our intellectual property as critical to our future success and rely on a combination of trademark laws and contractual restrictions to establish and protect our proprietary rights in our products. Our intellectual property includes trademarks and domain names associated with the names “Despegar.com” and “Decolar.com.” To protect our platform and technology, we have entered into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and certain contractors and suppliers. We own our technology platform, which is comprised of applications that we develop in-house using primarily open source software. We have not registered our technology, however, because we believe it would be difficult to replicate and that it is adequately protected by the agreements we have in place. Additionally, our technology is constantly evolving and any registration may run the risk of protecting outdated technology. We cannot assure you that all our intellectual property is fully protected and enforceable vis-à-vis third parties under all applicable laws in Latin America. For more information, see “Item 3. Key Information — D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business—We may not be able to adequately protect and enforce our intellectual property rights; and we could potentially face claims alleging that our technologies infringe the property rights of others.”

Seasonality

See “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects — Operating Results.”

Regulation

Regulations Related to the Travel Industry

The laws and regulations applicable to the travel industry affect us and our travel suppliers in the jurisdictions in which we operate, the jurisdictions in which our customers reside and the jurisdictions of their destinations. We are also required to be accredited by the International Air Transport Association (“IATA”) in order to promote and sell tickets for airlines connected to IATA.

Brazil

In addition to the standard licenses and permits required for all companies to operate in the travel industry in Brazil, we are subject to a specific registration of tourism providers with the Ministry of Tourism (“CADASTUR”). In Brazil, there are four main norms that govern the activities related to tourism, as well as the enrollment of services providers in the tourism industry: (i) Law No. 11,771/2008, which regulates the National Tourism Policy and defines the responsibilities of the federal government in planning, developing and stimulating the tourism sector; (ii) Decree No. 7,381/2010, which regulates Law No. 11,771/2008; (iii) Ordinance No. 130/2011 from the Ministry of Tourism, which establishes the CADASTUR, the CADASTUR’s consulting committee and regulates other measures; and (iv) Law No. 12,974/2014, which regulates the activities of tourism agencies.

 

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Argentina

As a travel agency in Argentina, Despegar.com.ar must be registered with the Registry of Travel Agents (Registro de Agentes de Viajes) created by Section 5 of Decree No. 2,182/72. The local regulation on commercial tourism activities is comprised of: (i) Law 25,997 and its applicable regulation which governs the development and promotion of tourism in Argentina; (ii) Law 18,829 which defines the regulations applicable to travel agents; (iii) the resolutions issued by the Secretariat of Tourism; and (iv) Law 24,240 as amended, which sets forth the provisions for the protection of consumers.

Regulations that apply to the E-Commerce Industry

We are also subject to a variety of laws, decrees and regulations that affect companies conducting business on the internet in the countries where we operate related to e-commerce, electronic or mobile payments; data collection; data protection; privacy; information requirements for internet providers; taxation (including value added taxes (“VAT”) or sales tax collection obligations); obligations to provide information to certain authorities; and other legislation which also applies to other companies conducting business in general. It is not clear how existing laws in Latin America governing issues such as general commercial activities, property ownership, copyrights and other intellectual property issues, taxation, consumer protection, digital signatures and personal privacy, apply to online businesses. Some of these laws were adopted before the internet was available and, as a result, do not contemplate or address the unique issues of the internet. Due to these areas of legal uncertainty, and the increasing popularity and use of the internet and other online services in our markets, it is possible that new laws and regulations will be adopted with respect to the internet or other online services. These regulations could cover a wide variety of issues, including e-commerce; internet service providers’ responsibility for third-party content hosted in their servers; user privacy; electronic or mobile payments; pricing, content and quality of products and services; taxation (including VAT or sales tax collection obligations, obligation to provide certain information about transactions that occurred through our platform, or about our users); advertising; intellectual property rights; consumer protection and information security. See “Item 3. Key Information — D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business—We process, store and use personal information, card payment information and other consumer data, which subjects us to risks stemming from possible failure to comply with governmental regulation and other legal obligations” and “Item 3. Key Information — D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business—Internet regulation in the countries where we operate is scarce, and several legal issues related to the internet are uncertain” for more information.

Brazil

Resolution (Circular) issued by the Central Bank of Brazil No. 3,682 regulates the payment arrangement (arranjos de pagamento) services in Brazil (“Payment Arrangement Services Rule”). On July 27, 2017 and March 26, 2018, the Central Bank of Brazil revoked and amended certain provisions and included new provisions to the Payment Arrangement Services Rule, which introduced a definition of subaccrediting entities (subrecendiador) and determined that all participants of the payment arrangements should be subject to a centralized settlement system not later than September 28, 2018.

Pursuant to Payment Arrangement Services Rule, subaccrediting entity is defined as a party of the payment arrangement that accredits a recipient to accept a payment instrument issued by a payment institution or a financial institution that is a party to the same payment arrangement, but that does not participate in the settlement process of transactions as creditor in relation to the issuer. In addition, the rule sets forth that the submission to the centralized settlement system is optional if the amount of transactions performed by each subaccrediting entity does not exceed R$500,000,000 (approximately $135,000,000) in a period of 12 months.

The definition of subaccrediting entity provided by the Payment Arrangement Services Rule is not precise enough to confirm that our Brazilian subsidiary would be subject to it.

We have been carrying on a series of discussions with the Central Bank of Brazil, financial institutions and other participants involved in the payments arrangements in order to obtain the necessary clarifications. However, the application of the Payment Arrangement Services Rule to our Brazilian subsidiary, could negatively impact the working capital of our business in Brazil.

Decolar demonstrated to the Central Bank of Brazil: (i) Resolution 3,682 does not applies to its business; (ii) Decolar should not be deemed a subaccrediting institution; and (iii) it should not be obliged to integrate its activities into the Payment Arrangement Services nor be subject to the payment arrangement rules issued by the Central Bank of Brazil.

On September 21, 2018, the Central Bank of Brazil issued a list of the entities and companies which should (not) be subjected to Resolution 3,682 as well as classifying each of them. Decolar has been classified as a non-subaccreditor and not as a marketplace entity as provided in the regulation 3,682. Decolar has been classified as a simple business establishment and not subjected to Resolution 3,682.

 

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Regulations Related to Consumer and Data Protection

We are subject to consumer and data protection laws in every country where we have a website.

Brazil

There are several laws in Brazil dealing with privacy and data protection, including: (i) the Brazilian Federal Constitution, which provides for the protection of individuals’ fundamental and inviolable rights of intimacy/privacy, private life and image; (ii) the Brazilian Civil Code (Law No. 10,406/2002), which reaffirms the Federal Constitution’s provision of fundamental rights, and provides for the right to act against violators in order to cease the violation and seek compensation for suffered damage; (iii) the Consumer Protection and Defense Code (Law No. 8,078/1990), which provides for consumer-related databases, data collection and penalties related therewith; (iv) the Brazilian Internet Act (Law No. 12,965/2014), which establishes principles, guarantees, rights and obligations related to the use of the internet in Brazil; and (v) the Brazilian Internet Act Regulation (Decree No. 8,771/2016), which sets forth security standards to be complied with by internet connection and application providers (online platform operators) when storing personal data.

Brazilian consumer protection authorities and courts take the view that the express consent of the consumer must be obtained before the collection, treatment, sharing and transmission of personal data. With regard to data collection, the Brazilian Internet Act provides that personal data collection, use, storage, sharing, transmission and treatment must be authorized previously and expressly by the individual, consistent with the general privacy principle set forth by the Federal Constitution and Consumer Defense Code. For the purposes of the Brazilian Internet Act and its regulation, personal data is deemed any data related to an identified or identifiable individual, including identifying numbers, location data or electronic identifiers, when related to an individual.

In addition, Law No. 9,507/1997 regulates privacy requirements and the habeas data process, by which individual citizens can ask a court to issue an order to protect, correct or remove their personal data, and recognizes consumers’ rights to access, correct and update their personal information stored in governmental or public databases. For the purposes of this law, a public database is composed by information that either: (i) is and/or may be transmitted to third parties; or (ii) is not exclusively used by the governmental agency or legal entity generating or managing the information.

As an internet-based retailer, we are also subject to several laws and regulations designed to protect consumer rights—most importantly the Consumer Protection and Defense Code, which regulates commercial practices, product and service liability, strict liability of the supplier of products or services, reversal of the burden of proof to the benefit of consumers, joint and several liability of all companies within the supply chain, abuse of rights in contractual clauses, and advertising and information on products and services offered to the public. The Consumer Protection and Defense Code establishes the legal framework for the protection of consumers, setting out certain basic rights, including the right to clear and accurate information about products and services offered in the consumer market, with correct specification of characteristics, structure, quality and price and the risks they pose. In addition, Executive Decree No. 7.962/13 applies with regards to retaining of service in an online environment. This legislation describes, among others, the rules on disclosure of information, consumer service, payment protection and other procedures for the rendering of online services.

Brazilian General Data Protection Law, N.º 13.709/2018

The Brazilian General Data Protection Law (Law No. 13.709/2018 – “LGPD”) was approved in August 2018 and it will be effective as of August, 2020. This vacatio legis was proposed in order to provide public and private institutions with a period for them to adapt to the LGPD. The LGPD is applicable to any individual or legal entity governed by public or private law treating personal data (i) in the Brazilian territory; or (ii) for the purposes of offering or supplying goods or services or treating information of data subjects located in Brazil; or (iii) if personal data has been collected in the Brazilian territory.

According to the LGPD, personal data can only be processed (i) upon data subject consent; (ii) in compliance with statutory or regulatory obligations; (iii) by public administration; (iv) for development of studies by research entities; (v) by contractual and preliminary contractual relationship; (vi) through lawsuits; (vii) for the protection of life and health; (viii) to legitimate interest of the controller; (ix) for credit protection. The treatment of sensitive personal data (e.g., regarding ethnical or racial origin, religion, political opinion or affiliation, health information, sexual orientation) is subject to a higher scrutiny.

As for liability, the general rule of the LGPD is that any Controller or Processor that, in the performance of the activity of personal data processing, causes any property, moral, individual or collective damage to any third party, in violation of the personal data protection law, shall be required to indemnify it. It is important to highlight that the Processor shall be jointly liable for any damages caused by the processing if the Processor fails to comply with the obligations of the data protection law or fails to follow the lawful instructions of the Controller.

 

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According to the LGPD, there are eight situations in which the international transfer of data is allowed:

 

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Data Subject has provided specific and highlighted consent for such transfer;

 

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To countries or international organizations that provide the appropriate level of protection of PERSONAL Data provided for by Brazilian law;

 

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Controller provides and demonstrates safeguards of compliance with the principles, rights of the data subject and data protection regime established in the law, in the form of specific contractual clauses for a given transfer, among others;

 

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The transfer is required for international legal cooperation between public bodies of intelligence;

 

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The transfer is required for life protection of the data subject or any third party;

 

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The national authority authorizes such transfer;

 

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The transfer results in a commitment undertaken under an international cooperation agreement; or

 

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The transfer is required for enforcement of a public policy.

Provisional Measure No. 869/2018 of December 27th, 2018 (MP 869/2018) created the National Data Protection Authority (“ANPD”), with powers to: (a) ensure the protection of personal data; (b) edit rules and procedures related to the protection of personal data; (c) interpret, in the administrative sphere, Law No. 13,709/2018 (Brazilian General Data Protection Regulation—LGPD), being the central body for interpretation of the LGPD and the establishment of norms and guidelines for its interpretation; (d) request information from controllers and operators of personal data; (e) implement simplified mechanisms, including by electronic means, for the recording of complaints about the treatment of personal data not in accordance with the LGPD; (f) supervise and apply sanctions, through administrative proceedings, in cases of non-compliance with the LGPD, having exclusive jurisdiction to apply such sanctions; and (g) promote cooperative actions with international data protection authorities; among others.

In order to gain definitive effectiveness, the MP 869/2018 must be converted into law.

Argentina

In Argentina, we are subject to e-commerce laws such as Resolution No. 104/05 adopted by the Ministry of Economy and the Argentine Consumer Protection Agency, which establishes certain information requirements for internet providers, and Law No. 25,326, as amended, and its corresponding regulations, which mandate the registration of databases with the Data Protection Agency and regulate, among other things, the type of information that can be collected, and how such information can be used.

Moreover, Law No. 24,240, as amended (the “Consumer Protection Law”), sets forth certain rules and principles designed to protect consumers. The Consumer Protection Law was amended on March 12, 2008 by Law No. 26,361 in several respects, including: (i) an increase in the size of the overall group of persons deemed to be consumers, or recipients of the protections of the Consumer Protection Law; (ii) an increase in the maximum penalties applicable to providers that breach the law to AR$5 million, as discussed below, and the granting of power to the administrative authority to require the payment of direct damages by any provider; (iii) requirements that providers pay punitive damages to consumers (which may not exceed AR$5 million); and (iv) regulations regarding the possibility for consumer associations to initiate class actions on behalf of consumer groups. The Argentine Secretary of Commerce, which is part of the Argentine Ministry of Economy, is the national enforcement authority of the Consumer Protection Law, while the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the provinces act as local enforcement authorities.

Regulations Related to Taxation

Brazil

In Brazil, between 2011 and 2015, our Brazilian subsidiary was exempt from collection of withholding income tax (“WHT”) on remittances to cover travel expenses of Brazilian individuals abroad, within the parameters established by applicable law. From January 1, 2016 to March 1, 2016, the applicable WHT for payments, credits, delivery, use by or remittance of these amounts to foreign persons was 25%. In February 2016, our Brazilian subsidiary filed a writ of mandamus (a judicial complaint) against the federal tax authority claiming that WHT should not be applicable due to a provision of “non-imposition” contained in the Income Tax Regulations. In March 2016, the court granted our Brazilian subsidiary a preliminary injunction on the writ of mandamus, which allowed our Brazilian subsidiary to make remittances free of WHT while the preliminary injunction was in place. In December 2016, the court published a decision on the merits of the case, against our Brazilian subsidiary (which terminated the effects of the preliminary injunction). Also in December 2016, our Brazilian subsidiary filed a Motion for Clarification, in an attempt to request the court to issue an opinion on the possible application of tax treaties to allow our Brazilian subsidiary to not collect WHT on the basis of their provisions.

 

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Since March 2, 2016, the former WHT exemption was converted into a WHT imposition of 6% on remittances to cover travel expenses of Brazilian individuals abroad, within the parameters established by applicable law. This reduced WHT rate is effective until December 31, 2019 and we cannot assure you that it will be extended in the future. During 2018 our Brazilian subsidiary has been judicially depositing the relevant amounts before the court in order to guarantee that (i) if the company is not successful in the plea before the court, the applicable WHT will be converted into income of the federal revenue, without the imposition of any fines or interest and (ii) if the company is successful in its plea, the amount corresponding to the WHT will be returned to our Brazilian subsidiary with monetary adjustments.

Argentina

Since 2013 we have been the beneficiary of a tax exemption, applicable until January 30, 2029, under Buenos Aires Municipal Law No. 2,972, which includes, among others, the turnover tax exemption. This law exempts from the turnover tax (as described below) any revenue directly connected to services performed through software applied to e-commerce that are performed within the designated IT district located in Parque Patricios in the city of Buenos Aires, only when: (i) said entity/person is registered under the Information and Communications Technologies Registry; and (ii) the entity/person keeps or increases the number of employees hired at the time of registration. Agreements executed by registered individuals in order to develop any of the activities promoted will also be exempt from stamp tax when the activities are carried out within or from the district. Because we perform e-commerce activity within and outside the IT district, these exemptions are partially applied. Revenue must be attributed to the IT district (and, thus, considered exempt) using a reasonable parameter.

On August 18, 2017, the Argentine National Ministry of Production issued Disposition 82-E/2017, accepting the registration of our Argentine subsidiary in the National Registry of Software Producers, created by Decree 1315/13. As a result of this registration and pursuant to Argentine National Law No. 25,922, as amended, and its corresponding regulations (the “Software Promotion Law”), our Argentine subsidiary has been granted several tax benefits through December 31, 2019. These benefits include (i) a fixed national tax rate, (ii) a fiscal bond equivalent to 70% of the value of 75.14% of the company’s social security tax contribution payments under Laws 19,032, 24,013 and 24,241, which can be used as a tax credit to offset national taxes; provided that not more than 13.83% of this tax credit may be used by the company to cancel Argentine corporate income tax; (iii) exemption from value-added tax withholding regimes; and (iv) a 60% reduction in the total amount of corporate income tax as applied to income from the activities of creation, design, development, production, implementation or adjustment (upgrade) of developed software systems and their associated documents. In 2019, the President presented the Economy of Knowledge bill to congress for purposes of improving the activities connected to the industry of knowledge. Such law aims to replace the Software Promotion Law.

On December 27, 2017, the Argentine Senate approved a comprehensive income tax reform effective since January 1, 2018. Among the key features of the bill, (i) reduces the current 35% income tax rate to 30% for 2018 and 2019, and to 25% as from 2020; (ii) imposes a dividend withholding tax paid by an Argentine entity of 7% for 2018 and 2019, increasing to 13% as from 2020; (iii) repeals the “equalization tax” (i.e., 35% withholding applicable to dividends distributed in excess of the accumulated taxable income) for income accrued from January 1, 2018; (iv) imposes income tax on indirect sales of assets located in Argentina for new stock acquisition, when Argentinean assets represent at least 30% of the value of the foreign entity; v) creates new rules applicable to controlled foreign companies for tax recognition of foreign profit investment; (vi) introduces taxation of foreign digital services on VAT for B2C (business to consumer) transactions; vii) establishes an advance pricing agreement regime and (viii) establishes a mutual agreement procedure for tax treaty interpretation disputes.

On 4th December 2018, Argentine Congress enacted a temporary duty on exports of services starting the 1st January 2019 until 31 December 2020. The new regulations establish a duty of 12% applicable on gross revenue related to cross border services, considering a maximum limit of ARS 4 per each American US dollar. The subsidiary located in Argentina performs services within the scope of the temporary duty.

Uruguay and Others

We operate as a free trade zone user of the Zonamerica Free Trade Zone in Montevideo, Uruguay (the “Free Trade Zone”), under Law No. 15,921 and its corresponding regulations. No domestic Uruguayan tax whatsoever applies in the Free Trade Zone, except for social security contributions for any Uruguayan employees. No social security contributions are required for non-Uruguayan employees, so long as they do not exceed 25% of the personnel working in the facility located in the Free Trade Zone. In addition, the inflow of goods and services to the Free Trade Zone, as well as their outflow abroad, are tax exempt. The movement of goods and services into a Free Trade Zone from non-Free Trade Zone Uruguayan territory is treated as an export and therefore also exempt from VAT and the Specific Internal Tax (Impuesto Específico Interno or “IEI”). On the other hand, if goods are introduced into non-free Uruguayan territory from a Free Trade Zone, the corresponding import tax will apply. Exporting services from a Free Trade Zone to non-Free Trade Zone Uruguayan territory is generally prohibited. However, in 2016, our Uruguay subsidiary located in the Free Trade Zone was authorized by the Ministry of Economy in Uruguay to have limited operations with a related party located in Uruguay. By law, the Uruguayan state is liable for damages if the tax exemptions, benefits and rights of users of Free Zones granted pursuant to the law are not fulfilled during the term of their contracts.

 

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We also receive certain tax benefits, consisting primarily of a reduced income tax rate, as a free trade zone user in Bogotá, Colombia under Decree 2147.

Regulations Related to Foreign Currency and Exchange Rates

There are also laws and regulations that address foreign currency and exchange rates in many of the countries in which we operate. In certain countries where we operate, we need governmental authorization to pay invoices to a foreign supplier or send money abroad due to foreign exchange restrictions. See “Item 3. Key Information — D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Latin America—We are subject to significant foreign currency exchange controls in certain countries in which we operate.”

Other Recent Argentine Regulations

Productive Financing Law. On November 13, 2017, the Macri administration submitted a draft bill to the Congress with the goal of developing, modernize and promote the development of the Argentine capital markets. The Argentine Congress passed this draft as Law No. 27,440 on May 9, 2018. Law No. 27,440 amends the existing Argentine Capital Markets Law, the Mutual Funds Law No. 24,083 and the Argentine Negotiable Obligations Law No. 23,576, among other complementary and relevant legislation, in an effort to update the applicable legal framework and fostering the development of the Argentine capital markets. Law No. 27,440 seeks to increase the base of investors and companies which take part in the capital markets, promoting productive financing for all players in the market but with special focus on micro-, small- and medium-sized companies, creating a regimen which promotes and eases financing to such companies. Furthermore, the Law No. 27,440 amends certain tax provisions, derivatives regulations and certain financial inclusion program.

Corporate Criminal Liability Law. On November 8, 2017, the Argentine Congress passed the Corporate Criminal Liability Law as Law No. 27,401, which implements certain international standards to penalize criminal offenses against public administration and cross-border bribery committed by, companies’ shareholders, attorneys-in-fact, directors, managers, employees, or representatives, among others. The Corporate Criminal Liability Act entered into effect on March 1, 2018.

Welfare Reform Law. On December 18, 2017, the Argentine Congress passed the Welfare Reform Law, as Law No. 27,426 proposed by the Macri administration that seeks comprehensive reform of the Argentine welfare system, including modifications to the basic formula for the periodic adjustment of retirement earnings, pensions and social plans. The Welfare Reform Law also modified the Labor Law No. 24.241 by establishing that employers may request employees who have reached 70 years of age to initiate retirement proceedings.

Tax Reform. On December 27, 2017, the Argentine Congress approved a Tax Reform as Law No. 27,430, which is intended to eliminate certain of the existing complexities and inefficiencies of the Argentine tax regime, reduce tax evasion, increase the coverage of income tax as applied to individuals and encourage investment while sustaining its medium- and long- term efforts aimed at restoring fiscal balance. The reforms will gradually come into effect over the next five years as part of a larger program announced by President Macri which goal is to increase the competitiveness of the Argentine economy as well as employment and diminish poverty on a sustainable basis.

Fiscal Consensus Laws. On December 21, 2017, the Argentine Congress passed the Fiscal Consensus Law, as Law No. 27,429. This law was based on an agreement signed on November 16, 2017 between the Argentine government and representatives from 23 out of Argentina’s 24 provinces, with the goal of implementing measures that favor sustained growth in economic activity, productivity and employment. On December 4, 2018, the Argentine Congress passed a new Fiscal Consensus Law, as Law No. 27,469, which modifies some aspects of the previous Law. For example, this new Law suspends the prohibition to increase the tax rate of the Personal Assets Tax and it also suspends, for a period of one year, the commitment of the provinces to reduce the Stamp Tax rates.

Decree No. 27/2018 (Decreto de Necesidad y Urgencia) on Debureaucratization and Simplification: The Executive Branch issued necessity and urgency Decree No. 27/2018 on Debureaucratization and Simplification (published in the Official Gazette on January 11, 2018). With this measure, the Argentine government seeks to reduce the amount of processes companies must complete to be able to operate in the country, seeking to be more efficient and accelerate processing. On May 30, 2018, the Argentine Congress passed the Law 27,444, Law 27,445 and Law 27, 446 in replacement of the Decree No. 27/2018. Although such Laws maintain most of the basic modifications introduced by the Decree, certain measures were left aside of the laws’ content and therefore, repealed.

 

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Argentina Considered Hyperinflationary Market

During May 2018, the International Practices Task Force (“IPTF”) discussed the highly inflationary status of the Argentine economy. Historically, the IPTF has used the Consumer Price Index (“CPI”) when considering the inflationary status of the Argentine economy. Given that the CPI was considered flawed by the current Argentine Government until December 2015 and the new CPI was published as from June 2016, the IPTF considered alternative indices to determine the three-year cumulative inflation.

A highly inflationary economy is one that has cumulative inflation of approximately 100% or more over a three-year period. The alternative three-year cumulative indices at June 30, 2018 exceeded 100%. According to U.S. GAAP, the company should apply highly inflationary accounting no later than July 1, 2018. As of July 1, 2018, the Company transitioned its Argentinian operations to highly inflationary status in accordance with U.S. GAAP, and changed the functional currency for the Argentine subsidiary from Argentine Pesos to U.S. dollars, which is the functional currency of their immediate parent company.

Pursuant to the change in the functional currency, local currency monetary assets and liabilities are remeasured at closing exchange rate, non-monetary assets are remeasured at the rate prevailing on the date of the respective transaction, and revenues and expenses are remeasured at the average exchange rate of each month. The effect of the remeasurement is recognized as foreign currency gains (losses).

Legal Proceedings

From time to time, we are involved in disputes and legal and administrative proceedings that arise in the ordinary course of our business. We are currently engaged in several legal proceedings, including consumer protection, tax, labor and other proceedings. Any claims against us, regardless of whether meritorious, can be time-consuming, result in costly litigation, require significant management time and result in the diversion of significant operational resources.

We have established provisions for such disputes and proceedings in an aggregate amount of $6.7 million as of December 31, 2018 We record a provision in our balance sheet for losses arising from litigation (mainly from customers and former employees) based on an evaluation of the likelihood of loss by our external and internal legal counsel, the progress of related proceedings, the history of losses in similar cases and the individual analysis of each contingency. We record provisions for contingencies based on probable loss or when so required under accounting rules. We do not reserve provisions for possible and remote losses.

We are currently not a party to any legal, arbitration or administrative proceedings that, in the opinion of our management, is likely to have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations, other than as set forth below.

Brazil

On June 25, 2014, the National Association of Citizenship and Consumer Defense (“ANADEC”) filed a public civil action against our Brazilian subsidiary to (i) dispute the validity of cancellation clauses which establish a penalty in a percentage higher than 20% of the price paid by the consumer; and (ii) request the return of the amounts paid by all consumers above this percentage. We successfully defended this claim in the trial court and the ANADEC has appealed the decision, which is ongoing. We believe this claim is without merit. On October 2016, the Court of Sao Paulo rejected ANADEC’s petition due to lack of legitimacy of the claimant. ANADEC appealed that resolution and on May 10, 2018, the Appeal Court decided to dissolve ANADEC. This decision, issued in another Civil Class Action filed by the Public Attorney’s Office of São Paulo against ANADEC, was inserted in Decolar’s Civil Class Action, in order to produce its effects.

On July 27, 2016, a Brazilian hotel sector association—Forum de Operadores Hoteleiros do Brasil (“FOHB”)—filed a complaint with the Brazilian Administrative Council for Economic Defence (“CADE”) against us, Booking.com and Expedia, with respect to parity provisions in supply contracts. Although we submitted our response to FOHB’s complaint, on October 2016 the CADE launched an administrative inquiry, as they concluded that the facts alleged by FOHB should be examined more deeply. After several months of discussions, that CADE agreed to close the investigations upon the execution of a settlement agreement with us, Booking.com and Expedia. Through the arrangement, the CADE limited the use of parity clauses in the commercial relations between OTAs and their accommodation suppliers. Therefore, parity clauses will not be valid to forbid better offers made by these hotels in their offline sales channels. In addition, the three companies party to the settlement will not be able to demand parity in relation to the prices charged by other online travel agencies. On the other hand, CADE accepted the possibility to keep requiring the parity clause regarding the offer of accommodation through the website of the hotels. The settlement agreement was approved by the CADE Tribunal on March 27, 2018. Since such settlement, we were required to inform our hotel suppliers about the settlement before June 1, 2018 and to make the necessary adjustments to our current contracts by July 31, 2018. The settlement agreement will be valid for three years and due to the type of the conduct, there is no legal obligation to pay a pecuniary contribution. It is important to note that the settlement is limited to the hotels located in Brazil. The CADE Tribunal has approved in September 4, 2018 the opinion of the CADE Attorney General Office attesting Decolar’s compliance with the Settlement Agreement, related to the obligation to communicate the hotels and amend all contracts. The case is currently closed.

 

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Between May and July 2016, Booking.com filed several complaints against us with various public offices: Public Prosecution Office of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Public Prosecution Office of the State of São Paulo, Consumer Defense Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Consumer Defense Office of the State of São Paulo, Consumer Defense Office of the Department of Justice, Consumer Defense Committee of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro and the Public Prosecution Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Booking.com alleges that (i) we offered higher prices to Brazilian consumers than those offered to foreign consumers for the same accommodation during the same period of time (“geopricing”) and (ii) we made accommodations unavailable for Brazilian consumers whereas foreign consumers were allowed to book the same accommodations (“geoblocking”). Based on these allegations, Booking.com is requesting that the public prosecution offices order us to pay penalties and/or to initiate public civil actions against us in order to prevent the alleged practices. We have presented our administrative defenses to all claims and currently the public prosecution offices are collecting evidence. Such complaints resulted in investigation proceedings with the respective authorities. As a result of these proceedings, in January 2018, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro filed a public civil action against us in the Rio de Janeiro court. The complaint refers to the alleged geopricing and geoblocking practices detrimental to Brazilian consumers and seeks relief to cease the practice and for payment of damages. We filed our defense on March 20, 2018 and provided evidence that we weren’t engaging in those alleged practices. Although we believe our Brazilian subsidiary has meritorious defenses to this lawsuit, we cannot assure you what the ultimate outcome of this matter will be. The final resolution of this claim, which could take several years, is not likely to have a material effect on our financial position or results of operations.

Argentina

On June 28, 2017, the Sindicato Empleados de Comercio de Capital Federal (Union for Employees of the Commercial Sector in the City of Buenos Aires, or “SECCF”) filed a lawsuit against our Argentine subsidiary, Despegar.com.ar, in which SECCF is demanding the application of its collective labor agreement to all of the employees of the subsidiary. According to SECCF’s claim, Despegar.com.ar should have withheld and transferred to SECCF an amount equal to 2% of the gross monthly salaries of all of its employees for the period from October 2011 through October 2016. As a result, SECCF is demanding payment of approximately AR$18 million.

On April 19, 2018 SECCF filed a new claim, similar to the previous one, but against La Inc S.A.—an Argentine subsidiary company that had already been merged with Despegar.com.ar several months before. In this new claim, SECCF is demanding an amount equal to the 0.5% of the gross monthly salaries of La Inc’s employees for certain periods (July and August, 2012; September, 2013; and March, 2015 to the present).

Despegar.com.ar filed both responses in a timely manner, rejecting all the claims, with similar defenses. It is important to mention that although certain of Despegar.com.ar’s employees are members of this union, we believe that other employees, such as senior management and IT personnel, should not be part of this union.

Although we believe Despegar.com.ar has meritorious defenses to this lawsuit, we cannot assure you what the ultimate outcome of this matter will be. The final resolution of these claims, which could take several years, is not likely to have a material effect on our financial position or results of operations.

 

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C.	Organizational Structure

Despegar.com, Corp. is a holding company organized in the British Virgin Islands, which owns, directly or indirectly, all of our operating subsidiaries. The diagram below depicts the organizational structure of our key subsidiaries:

 

 

D.	Property, Plants and Equipment

The following table shows the location of our significant leased offices and customer service centers, and the term of the leases under which they operate.

 

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City, Country

Facility

Address

Approximate Square Meters

Agreement Expiration Date

Buenos Aires Argentina

Argentina operation and   regional functions

Avenida Corrientes 746

2,030

03/31/2020

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Argentina operation and   regional functions

Juana Manso 999, 2 Floor

4,422

8/31/2021

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Argentina operation and   regional functions

Juana Manso 1069, 5 Floor

1,203

05/21/2022

La Plata, Buenos Aires Argentina

Argentina operation

Camino Centenario esq. 511, La Plata

2,600

08/31/2022

São Paulo, Guarulhos, Brazil

Brazil operation

Avenida Timóteo Penteado Nbr. 1578

2,792

8/10/2019

Bogotá, Colombia

Colombia operation and      customer service center

Interior 101, Manzana 15, Carretera 106 Nbr. 15A-25, Free Trade Zone

1,754

2/23/2020

Montevideo, Uruguay

International Hotels, Packages      and Other Travel Products      operations and Shared      service center

Ruta 8 Km. 17,500, local 318, edificio 300, Zonamerica

2,092

9/14/2020

Sao Paulo, Barueri, Brazil

Brazil operation

Alameda Grajuá 219

5,600

8/16/2023

We also own two properties: (1) an approximately 2,077 square meter facility at Jujuy 2013 in the Parque Patricios tech district of Buenos Aires, Argentina, which houses part of our Argentina operations including IT support, and (2) an approximately 223 square meter facility on Avenida Francisco de Miranda in Caracas, Venezuela, which houses our Venezuela operations.

 

ITEM 4A.

UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None.

 

ITEM 5.

OPERATING AND FINANCIAL REVIEW AND PROSPECTS

 

A.	Operating Results

Overview

We are the leading online travel company in Latin America, known by our two brands, Despegar, our global brand, and Decolar, our Brazilian brand. We have a comprehensive product offering, including airline tickets, packages, hotels and other travel-related products, which enables consumers to find, compare, plan and purchase travel products easily through our marketplace. We provide our network of travel suppliers a technology platform for managing the distribution of their products and access to our users. We are focused on the underpenetrated Latin America travel industry, where approximately $46 billion and $41 billion in gross bookings were transacted in 2018 and 2017, respectively. Gross bookings are expected to grow to approximately $71 billion (in current terms) by 2022, representing an estimated CAGR of 11,6% for the period 2018 – 2022, according to Euromonitor International. In 2018, 42% of all travel bookings were done online, a percentage that is expected to increase to approximately 50% in 2022.

We organize our business into two segments: (1) Air, which consists of the sale of airline tickets, and (2) Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products, which consists of travel packages (which can include airline tickets and hotel rooms), as well as stand-alone sales of hotel rooms (including vacation rentals), car rentals, bus tickets, cruise tickets, travel insurance and destination services. In 2018, we derived 40.5% and 59.5% of our total revenue from our Air and our Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products segments, respectively. In 2017, we derived 46.0% and 54.0% of our total revenue from our Air and our Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products segments, respectively. In 2016, we derived 50.0% and 50.0% of our total revenue from our Air and our Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products segments, respectively.

We report our revenue on a net basis, deducting cancellations and amounts that we collect as sales taxes. We derive most of our revenue from commissions and other incentive payments paid by our suppliers and service fees paid by our customers. We recognize revenue for certain up-front incentive commissions and service fees at the time of sale for both product segments.

 

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For 2018, 2017 and 2016:

 

•

revenue was $530.6 million, $523.9 million and $411.2 million, respectively;

 

•

operating income was $45.4 million, $71.2 million and $35.1 million, respectively; and

 

•

net income was $ 19.2 million, $42.4 million and $17.8 million, respectively.

In May 2017, the stockholders of our predecessor, Decolar.com, Inc., a Delaware corporation, exchanged their shares for ordinary shares of Despegar.com, Corp., a business company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands to create a new BVI holding company. Following the exchange, our shareholders own shares of Despegar.com, Corp. and Decolar.com, Inc. is a subsidiary of Despegar.com, Corp. The audited consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2017 and 2016, and for the three years ended December 31, 2017 to the extent related to the events and periods prior to May 3, 2017, are the consolidated financial statements of Decolar.com, Inc., which is our predecessor for accounting purposes.

Key Trends and Factors Affecting Our Business

We believe that our results of operations and financial performance will be driven primarily by the following:

 

•

Growth in and Retention of our Customer Base: A key driver of our revenue will be the number of customer transactions and the growth in our customer base. We have grown our customer base from 2.7 million unique customers booking travel with us in 2012 to 5.3 million in 2018. One important driver of growth in our customer base is consumer awareness of our brand which we foster via our online and offline marketing throughout our target markets in Latin America. We also benefit from network effects, in that a larger customer base helps us to attract additional suppliers and, in turn, a larger network of suppliers helps us to attract new customers as well as drive retention and repeat purchases. During 2018, we increased 12% our total unique customers. We focus on maintaining strong customer satisfaction to build long-term customer relationships. In 2018 and 2017, approximately 71.8% and 64.0%, respectively, of our customers had completed previous purchases on our platform.

 

•

Cross-Selling: Our financial results are also driven by our ability to cross-sell and increase the number of products that we are able to sell in connection with each trip, which allows us to increase our revenue from each transaction without incurring the costs of acquiring additional customers.

 

•

Changes in Product Mix and New Product Offerings: In addition to the total volume of transactions, our operating results also vary depending on product mix. In particular, packages and hotels tend to have higher margins than air travel. In addition, we continually seek to expand our product offerings, whether by adding new product categories, such as our introduction of our bus, local concierge and vacation rentals products, which may have higher or lower margins than our overall business, or by the ongoing expansion of our supplier base.

 

•

Packages as a driver of business growth: A key strategy of our business for the coming years, is to increase our proprietary activities, in both forms allotments and tour operations, which allow as to generate higher margins, but is associated with inventory risk. We believe we have the capability to appropriately manage this inventory.

 

•

Shift to Mobile Transactions: As smart phone penetration in Latin America continues to increase, Latin American consumers have begun to make greater use of mobile devices to transact online. Mobile is an increasingly important part of our business, as consumers are quickly able to access and browse our real-time travel offerings, compare prices and make purchases through their mobile devices. During 2018 and 2017, mobile accounted for approximately 61% and 54%, respectively, of all of our user visits, and approximately 34% and 28%, respectively, of our transactions were completed on our mobile platform, complementing our desktop website traffic. In addition, the mix of our transactions via mobile increased by approximately 6 percentage points in 2018 compared to 2017. During 2018, we increased 27% our unique customers in mobile devices. Our strategic focus on mobile enables us to remain connected to customers and provides the opportunity for customers to access our platform after they have arrived at their destination to purchase additional products, such as rental cars, destination services and travel insurance, or make last-minute hotel or air travel bookings.

 

•

Selling and Marketing Expenditures: Our number of transactions and gross bookings, and consequently our revenue and results of operations, are impacted by the level of our selling and marketing expenditures. We monitor our selling and marketing expenditures and their impact on our revenue in many cases virtually in real-time, as a significant amount of our selling and marketing expenditures relate to online advertising for which we can obtain real-time click-through data. As a result, we are able to adjust our selling and marketing expenditures to respond rapidly to changing market conditions. During 2018, our selling and marketing expenditures increased 7% compared to prior periods due to the following: (1) continue investment to build brand awareness and to increase market share (2) partially offset the currency depreciation, particularly in Argentina in December 2018, (3)improving efficiency in investments. During 2018, our number of transactions increased 15% and gross bookings increased 6%, in both cases compared to 2017.

 

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Key Business Metrics

We regularly review the following key metrics to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends in our business, prepare financial projections and make strategic decisions.

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018				2017				% Change				2017				2016				% Change
		(in thousands)												(in thousands)
Operational
Number of transactions
By country
Brazil			4,230				3,713				14				3,713				2,924				26
Argentina			2,378				2,264				5				2,264				1,798				26
Other			3,785				3,079				23				3,079				2,490				25
Total			10,393				9,056				15				9,056				7,212				26
By segment
Air			5,945				5,285				12				5,285				4,250				24
Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products			4,449				3,771				18				3,771				2,963				27
Total			10,393				9,056				15				9,056				7,212				26
Gross bookings		$	4,715,235			$	4,454,548				6			$	4,454,548			$	3,260,234				37
Financial
Adjusted EBITDA (unaudited)		$	67,644			$	89,354				(25	)		$	89,354			$	48,585				84

Number of Transactions

The number of transactions for a period is an operating measure that represents the total number of customer orders completed on our platform in such period. We monitor the total number of transactions, as well as the number of transactions in each of our segments and the number of transactions with customers in each of Brazil, Argentina and the other countries in which we operate. The number of transactions is an important metric because it is an indicator of the level of engagement with our customers and the scale of our business from period to period but, unlike gross bookings and our financial metrics, the number of transactions is independent of the average selling price of each transaction, which can be significantly influenced by fluctuations in currency exchange rates.

Gross Bookings

Gross bookings is an operating measure that represents the aggregate purchase price of all travel products booked by our customers through our platform during a given period. We generate substantially all of our revenue from commissions and other incentive payments paid by our suppliers and service fees paid by our customers for transactions through our platform, and, as a result, we monitor gross bookings as an important indicator of our ability to generate revenue.

Adjusted EBITDA

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income exclusive of financial income / (expense), income tax, depreciation, amortization and share-based compensation.

 

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We believe that Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, provides useful supplemental information to investors about us and our results. Adjusted EBITDA is among the measures used by our management team to evaluate our financial and operating performance and make day-to-day financial and operating decisions. In addition, Adjusted EBITDA is frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other parties to evaluate companies in the online travel industry. We also believe that Adjusted EBITDA is helpful to investors because it provides additional information about trends in our core operating performance prior to considering the impact of capital structure, depreciation, amortization, and taxation on our results.

Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for other measures of financial performance reported in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical tool, including:

 

•

Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect changes in, including cash requirements for, our working capital needs or contractual commitments;

 

•

Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect our financial expenses, or the cash requirements to service interest or principal payments on our indebtedness, or interest income or other financial income;

 

•

Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect our income tax expense or the cash requirements to pay our income taxes;

 

•

although depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges, the assets being depreciated or amortized often will need to be replaced in the future, and Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect any cash requirements for these replacements;

 

•

although share-based compensation is a non-cash charge, Adjusted EBITDA does not consider the potentially dilutive impact of share-based compensation; and

 

•

other companies may calculate Adjusted EBITDA differently, limiting its usefulness as a comparative measure.

We compensate for the inherent limitations associated with using Adjusted EBITDA through disclosure of these limitations, presentation of our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP and reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure, net income.

The table below provides a reconciliation of our net income to Adjusted EBITDA:

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018				2017				2016
		(in thousands)
Net income		$	19,154			$	42,366			$	17,797
Add (deduct):
Financial expense/ (income), net			19,167				17,879				6,752
Income tax expense			7,069				11,994				10,538
Depreciation expense			5,348				5,075				5,089
Amortization of intangible assets			10,140				8,751				7,835
Share-based compensation expense			6,766				4,289				574
Adjusted EBITDA		$	67,644			$	89,354			$	48,585

Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

We report our revenue on a net basis for those transactions in which we are intermediaries and on gross basis for those transactions in which we are the principal, deducting cancellations and amounts that we collect as sales taxes. We derive substantially all of our revenue from commissions and other incentive payments paid by our suppliers and service fees paid by our customers for transactions through our platform. To a lesser extent, we also derive revenue from the sale of third-party advertisements on our websites and from certain suppliers when their brands appears in our advertisements in mass media, which in 2018, 2017 and 2016 amounted to 2.9%, 2.7% and 1.8%, respectively, of total revenue.

 

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The structure of our fees and commissions varies significantly by product. Supplier incentives take several forms, including up-front commissions, which we recognize at the time of booking or upon check-in; back-end commissions and other bonuses based on satisfying volume targets for certain suppliers; as well as certain payments from our GDS suppliers and other suppliers. We also receive certain service fees from our customers, which vary based on a number of factors, including the type of product, destination and point of sale.

In both of our segments, we recognize revenue for certain up-front incentives commissions and service fees at the time of sale. In our merchant, or pre-pay, model transactions, our supplier agreements allow us to receive full payment at the time of booking from the customer while the supplier is paid after check-out. In our agency, or pay-at-destination, model, we may either record the booking without taking payment from the customer or collect an amount equal to the commission from the customer while the customer pays the supplier only at check-out.

We seek to develop and maintain long-term relationships with travel suppliers, GDSs and other intermediaries. Our travel supplier management personnel work directly with travel suppliers to optimize access to their travel products for visitors to our platform, including through promotional activity, and maximize our revenue. In most cases, we enter into non-exclusive contracts with our travel suppliers, although in the case of some travel suppliers we may have informal arrangements without written contracts. Typically, supplier payment terms are negotiated on a regular basis. We have an exclusive contract with Expedia and its affiliates to offer through our platform hotel and other lodging products for all countries outside of Latin America. The contract establishes agreed payment terms. In 2018, 2017 and 2016, 8.2%, 9.1% and 9.3% of our gross bookings, respectively, were attributable to supply provided by affiliates of Expedia. For more information about our relationships with Expedia, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions —B. Related Party — Relationship with Expedia.” Given the fragmentation in travel suppliers in our markets, the frequency of negotiations of payment terms and competitive conditions, we have experienced what we consider to be limited volatility related to our arrangements with suppliers; however, we cannot assure you that we will not experience more volatility in the future.

Cost of Revenue

Cost of revenue consists of (1) credit card processing fees, (2) fees that we pay to banks relating to the customer financing installment plans that we offer, (3) the costs of operating our fulfillment center, customer service and risk management, (4) costs borne by us as a result of credit card chargebacks, including those related to fraud, (5) claims against us under consumer protection laws, (6) certain transaction-based taxes, other than income taxes (which are included under income tax expense) and sales taxes (which are deducted from our revenue) (7) a portion of overhead expenses distributed based on the percentage of our employees attributable to cost of revenue, and (8) amortization of property and equipment related to our fulfillment operation.

Selling and Marketing

Selling and marketing expense is comprised of direct costs, including online marketing such as search engine and social media marketing, and offline marketing, such as television and print advertising. It also includes expenses of our selling and marketing personnel, and related overhead usually distributed based on the percentage of our employees attributable to selling and marketing (for example, rent, facilities, depreciation etc.) Selling and marketing expense also includes commissions paid to certain third-party affiliates for sales that they generate through our systems. Reductions on a per transaction basis are expected to continue as the economy scales. However, the impact on operating contribution will vary with the level of activity and average selling prices.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expense consists primarily of personnel expenses for management, including both senior management and local managers, and employees involved in general corporate functions, including finance, accounting, tax, legal, human resources and commercial analysts, our share-based compensation expenses for grants to members of our management team and professional and consulting fees. General and administrative expense also includes a portion of the overhead distributed based on the percentage of our employees attributable to general and administrative (for example, rent, facilities and depreciation). General and administrative expense also includes bad debt expense that we recognize relating to the risk that we are unable to collect receivables from certain suppliers.

 

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Technology and Product Development

Technology and product development expense includes the costs of developing our platform, as well as information technology costs to support our infrastructure, back-office operations and overall monitoring and security of our networks. This expense is principally comprised of personnel, and depreciation and amortization of technology assets, including hardware, and purchased and internally-developed software. Technology and product development expense also includes a portion of the overhead expense for our facilities, based on the percentage of our employees attributable to technology and product development. During 2018, 2017 and 2016, we capitalized $13.5 million, $12.9 million and $12.2 million, respectively, for internal-use software and website development costs.

We classify our supplier relationships as a component of the products that we offer to our customers and, accordingly, our costs of acquiring and maintaining supplier relationships, including the costs of our personnel engaged in supplier relationships, are included as a component of technology and product development expense.

Financial Income / (Expense)

The functional currency of Despegar.com, Corp. and the functional currency of certain of our subsidiaries, including our U.S., Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina (from July 1, 2018) subsidiaries, as well as one of our Uruguay subsidiaries, is the U.S. dollar. Each of our other subsidiaries uses its local currency as its functional currency. Gains and losses resulting from transactions by each entity in non-functional currency are included in financial income / (expense). Financial income / (expense) also includes gains and losses on certain derivative financial instruments that we use to manage our exposure to foreign exchange volatility.

In addition, our assets and liabilities are translated from local currencies into dollars at the end of each period. However, any gains and losses resulting from such translations are reflected in our consolidated statement of comprehensive income / (loss) and are not reflected in our consolidated statements of operations. See also “Item 11. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk—Foreign Exchange Risk.”

Many of our customers finance their purchases from us using installment plans offered by third-party financial institutions. When customers make purchases using installment plans, the third-party financial institution bears the risk that the customer will make the required installment payments. In all markets except Brazil, we typically receive payment in full in less than one month after booking. However, our agreements with financing providers in Brazil allow for a significant delay between the initial transaction and the payment of the purchase price to us. In Brazil, we generally receive payment from the installment financing provider only after each scheduled payment due date from the customer. In the interim, the payment obligation is recognized as a receivable on our balance sheet. In some cases, we elect to factor or discount these Brazilian installment receivables, allowing us to receive the payment of the purchase price more quickly. The difference between the book value of the receivable and the amount that we receive for factoring such receivable is recognized as financial expense.

We also maintain revolving credit facilities in certain jurisdictions, and the associated interest expense is also included in financial income / (expense). As of December 31, 2018, we had outstanding borrowings of $31.2 million under these facilities.

Income Tax Expense

As a Delaware corporation, our predecessor and subsidiary Decolar.com, Inc. is subject to taxation in the United States. In May 2017, the stockholders of Decolar.com, Inc. exchanged their shares for newly issued shares of Despegar.com, Corp. Although Despegar.com, Corp. is organized in the BVI, as a result of the exchange, under the “anti-inversion” rules of Section 7874 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, Despegar.com, Corp. is treated for U.S. federal tax purposes as a U.S. corporation and, accordingly, Despegar.com, Corp. is subject to U.S. federal income tax on its worldwide income, at a maximum rate which was reduced from 35% to 21% in January 2018.

We are subject to foreign taxes in the multiple jurisdictions in which we operate. In Brazil and Argentina, the income tax statutory rates are 34% and 30%, respectively.

 

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Results of Operations

Year Ended December 31, 2018 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2017

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018								2017
		(in thousands)
						% of Revenue								% of Revenue				% Change
Revenue
Air		$	214,804				40.5			$	241,015				46.0				(11	)
Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products			315,810				59.5				282,925				54.0				12
Total revenue			530,614				100.0				523,940				100.0				1
Cost of revenue			172,110				32.4				142,479				27.2				21
Gross profit			358,504				67.6				381,461				72.8				(6	)
Operating expenses
Selling and marketing			174,357				32.9				166,288				31.7				5
General and administrative			67,240				12.7				72,626				13.9				(7	)
Technology and product development			71,154				13.4				71,308				13.6				(0.2	)
Impairment of long-lived assets			363				0.1				—				—				—
Total operating expenses			313,114				59.0				310,222				59.2				1
Operating income			45,390				8.6				71,239				13.6				(36	)
Financial income			7,621				1.4				2,389				0,5				219
Financial expense			(26,788	)			(5,0	)			(19,268	)			(3,7	)			39
Net income before income taxes			26,223				10.0				54,360				10.4				(28	)
Income tax expense			7,069				1.3				11,994				2.3				(41	)
Net income		$	19,154				8.7			$	42,366				8.1				(25	)

 

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Revenue

Revenue increased from $523.9 million in 2017 to $530.6 million in 2018. The increase in revenue was primarily a result of 15% increase in the number of transactions from 9.1 million in 2017 to 10.4 million in 2018, and a 6% increase in gross bookings from $4,455 million in 2017 to $4,715 million in 2018, almost completely offset by a decline in the average selling price and mainly reflecting the foreign exchange translation impact from currency depreciation and lower purchasing power resulting from challenging macroeconomic conditions in Argentina and a change in the mix-shift from international to domestic travel across key markets, especially Brazil, which also had an impact in lower backend incentives due to the decrease in international flights. The increase in number of transactions and gross bookings was primarily due to an increase in our selling and marketing activities, increase of discounts and installments, and the launch of our proprietary activities (tour operations and allotments).

Additionally, as of January 1, 2018, we changed the revenue recognition of our Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products, reimbursable, and paid-at-destination bookings, from check-out to booking in the context of the new revenue recognition standard ASC 606. We elected to adopt the new standard using the modified retrospective approach for all contracts reflecting the aggregate effect of modifications prior to the date of adoption. Results for reporting periods beginning after January 1, 2018 are presented under the new guidance, while prior period amounts were not adjusted and continue to be reported under the accounting standards in effect for those periods.

The following is a discussion of our revenue broken down by our two business segments: Air; and Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products.

Air Segment. The revenue in our Air segment decreased by 11%, to $214.8 million in 2018 from $241.0 million in 2017, primarily due to a decrease of 21% in the average revenue per transaction for the segment, resulting primarily from a decrease in our rate of commissions, incentives and fees due to a commercial strategy to increase sales opportunities and a change in the mix-shift from international to domestic travel across key markets.

Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products Segment. The revenue in our Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products segment increased by 12%, to $315.8 million in 2018 from $282.9 million in 2017, primarily due to an increase of 12% in the number of transactions in this segment, partially offset by a decrease of 5% in the revenue per transaction, resulting primarily from a greater product mix of domestic travel due to currency depreciation, accompanied by the slower macroeconomic environment and price discounts.

Additionally, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, we changed the revenue recognition of the Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products reimbursable and paid-at-destination bookings, from check-out to booking.

The following presents a breakdown of our revenue by: commissions, incentives and fees; advertising; commissions for the release of aged payables; and deferred revenue.

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018				2017
		(in thousands)
Commissions, incentives and fees(1)		$	504,287			$	514,126
Advertising(1)			15,170				14,277
Commissions for release of aged payables			6,476				6,147
Sales as Principal			4,681				—
Deferred revenue			—				(10,610	)
Total revenue		$	530,614			$	523,940

 

(1)	Net of sales tax.

 

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The following table presents a breakdown of our revenue for commissions, incentives and fees by: pre-pay model; pay-at-destination model; and other.

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018				2017
		(in thousands)
Pre-pay model		$	415,812			$	412,679
Pay-at-destination model			20,143				23,710
Other(1)			68,332				77,737
Total revenue		$	504,287			$	514,126

 

(1)	Primarily includes incentives from our travel suppliers, primarily airlines and GDSs.

Our revenue from our pre-pay model increased by 1% in 2018 mainly due to our increased promotional activity to take advantage of higher demand for sales in installments. Our revenue from our pay-at-destination model decreased by 15% in 2018, mainly due to a decrease in the revenue per transaction, due to mix-shift from international to domestic destinations. Other revenue decreased by 12% in 2018, due to a decrease in revenue from GDSs and other incentives caused by the decreased in international transactions, which generates higher incentives than domestic transactions.

Cost of Revenue

Cost of revenue increased from $142.5 million in 2017 to $172.1 in 2018, an increase of 21%. The increase was a result of an increase in the installment expenses related to the increase in the number of transactions as well as higher financing costs from the third party banks providing the installment plans as we increased the availability and duration of installments. Credit card merchant fees also increased due to the higher mix of Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products where we are the merchant of record and incur a credit card merchant fee, as well as the greater instances in which we were also the merchant of record in Air transactions in order to provide to our customers’ alternatives ways of payments and installment options. Additionally, the increase in cost of revenue was generated by the launch of our proprietary activities (tour operations and allotments). These increased costs were partially offset by a decrease in the fraud expense due to our implementation of more effective anti-fraud protocol at the beginning of 2016. As a percentage of revenue, cost of revenue increased from 27% in 2017 to 32% in 2018.

Gross Profit

Gross profit decreased from $381.4 million in 2017 to $358.5 in 2018, or a decrease of 6%, mainly due to the initiatives to accelerate market share growth, cost related to the recent launch of the proprietary business, including tour operation activities and allotments, along with investments to support improving customer satisfaction levels. As a percentage of revenue, gross profit decreased from 72.8% in 2017 to 67.6% in 2018.

Selling and Marketing

Selling and marketing expense increased from $166.2 million in 2017 to $174.4 million in 2018, an increase of 5%. The increase was a result of our continued investments to build brand awareness and to increase market share, partially offset by the regional currency depreciation on costs, lower level marketing investments and improving efficiencies. As a percentage of revenue, selling and marketing expense increased from 31.7% in 2017 to 32.9% in 2018.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expense decreased from $72.6 million in 2017 to $67.2 million in 2018, or a decrease of 7%. The decrease was a benefit from the local currency depreciation, mainly in Argentina, partially offset by a higher share-based compensation cost, as well as an increase in personnel costs due to a higher headcount and personnel expenses. As a percentage of revenue, general and administrative expense declined from 13.9% in 2017 to 12.7% in 2018.

 

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Technology and Product Development

Technology and product development expense decreased from $71.3 million in 2017 to $71.2 million in 2018. The decrease was a result of higher personnel costs almost completely compensated by the currency depreciation, mainly in Argentina.

Operating Income

In 2018, we had operating income of $45.4 million as compared to operating income of $71.2 million in 2017, or a decrease in operating income of $25.8 million. As a percentage of revenue, our operating income decreased from 13.6% in 2017 to 8.6% in 2018.

The following table presents a breakdown of our operating income by our two business segments.

 

		Year Ended December 31,
		2018				2017
		(in thousands)
Air		$	23,160			$	56,532
Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products			33,157				28,785
Unallocated corporate expenses			(10,927	)			(14,078	)
Total operating income		$	45,390			$	71,239

Corporate expense allocation is based on the expenses planned in the annual budget, and variances to the budget are also recorded in unallocated corporate expenses. Unallocated corporate expenses in 2017 were more than expected as compared to the annual budget which is used as the basis of allocation. Expenses were more than budgeted due to an increase in stock compensation expense, consulting expenses, management bonus accrual and management personnel expense as compared to the annual budget.

Air Segment. Our operating income from our Air segment decreased from $56.5 million in 2017 to $23.2 million, primarily due to a decrease in Air revenue caused by the change in the mix-shift from international to domestic travels and currency devaluation in key markets. As a percentage of revenue from our Air segment, our operating income from our Air segment decreased from 23.5% in 2017 to 10.8% in 2018.

Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products Segment. Our operating income from our Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products segment increased from $28.8 million in 2017 to $33.2 million in 2018, primarily due to an increase in revenue from this segment.

Financial Income / (Expense)

Financial expense increased by 14%, from $16.9 million in 2017 to $19.2 million in 2018. The increase was primarily a result of increased factoring activity in Brazil related to the increase in number of transactions and gross bookings, an increase on warranty charges do to the replacement of cash collaterals during the year, partially offset with the increase in interest income due to short-term cash investments.

Income Tax Expense

We are subject to taxes in the multiple jurisdictions where we operate. Our tax obligations consist of current and deferred income taxes and withholding taxes incurred in these jurisdictions. Income tax expense decreased from $12 million in 2017 to $7 million in 2018, Our effective tax rate in 2018 was 27%, compared to 22% in 2017. The higher effective rate in 2018 was due primarily to the decrease in non-taxable income. Moreover, a lower rate in 2017 was mainly caused by the recognition of deferred tax assets and by a reversal of a tax contingency due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

 

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