Despegar has seen a decline in gross bookings for the first quarter of 2021 because of the COVID-19 spike in the region.
The Latin American online travel agency reported gross bookings of $369 million for the quarter, down 8% quarter-on-quarter and 53% year-on-year.
The company says that transactions decreased 2% for Q1 compared with the previous quarter but excluding Brazil, grew 12%.
Revenue for Despegar dipped 3% to almost $52 million quarter-on-quarter and 32% year-on-year.
Adjusted EBITDA came in at a loss of $20 million “reflecting the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in Brazil and Argentina.”
This compares to losses of $19 million in Q4 of 2020 and $14 million year-on-year.
Damian Scokin, CEO of Despegar, says: “In this choppy market environment, our geographic diversification efforts are having the desired results. A healthy performance in Mexico with sequential low double digit growth in gross bookings partially offset the declines in Brazil and Argentina.
Countries in the Andean Region including Colombia and Chile also delivered sequential improvement.”
He adds that current trends are expected to continue throughout Q2 but there is confidence that demand will pick up as the region reaches its spring and summer seasons and vaccination programs accelerate.
Despegar announced investment of $200 million in August last year and says it had almost $326 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of Q1.