Latin America-focused Despegar captured $61 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2021, indicating a gradual uptick in activity in the region.
The online travel agency business was up 22% on the same period in 2020, at the height of the pandemic period that year, but is still operating at 45% below the corresponding quarter in 2019.
Gross bookings were boosted by 32% to $489 million between the first and second quarters of this year, driven by high travel demand in Mexico and Colombia. The metric is up 899% compared to Q2 2020.
Excluding Despegar's two largest markets of Argentina and Brazil, gross bookings were up 64%.
CEO Damian Scokin says: "While near term perspectives are mixed across geographies, we remain confident that overall travel demand will pick up as we enter the South American spring/summer seasons in the coming months and the COVID-19 vaccination rollout accelerates."
A quarter of transactions came from customers in Brazil, the company reports, a shift from the 31% in the first quarter of this year, indicating the impact on OTA from travel restrictions that were put in place in April amid a new rise in infections in the country.
Adjusted EBITDA for Despegar was a loss of $10.5 million for the second quarter of 2021, after reporting a loss of $32 million in the corresponding period last year.
Sales and marketing activity increased to $19.2 million in Q2 2021 from $6.8 million in the previous three-month period. Activity is still running at 62% below the levels reported in Q2 2019.