Despegar.com Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 15, 2024

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Disparte's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Christa, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. And please note that today's webcast is being recorded. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation.

Operator

Now I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Luca Pfeiffer, Investor Relations. Luca, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. In addition to reporting unaudited financial results in accordance with U. S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, we will discuss certain non GAAP financial measures and operating metrics, including foreign exchange neutral calculations. Investors should carefully read the definitions of these measures and metrics included in our press release to ensure that they understand them.

Speaker 1

Non GAAP financial measures and operating metrics should not be considered in isolation as substitutes for or superior to GAAP financial measures and are provided as supplemental information only. Before we begin our prepared remarks, please allow me to remind you that certain statements made during the course of this discussion may constitute forward looking statements, which are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ, including factors that may be beyond the company's control. These include, but are not limited to, expectations and assumptions related to the integration and performance of the businesses we acquire. For a description of these risks, please refer to our filings with the U. S.

Speaker 1

Securities and Exchange Commission and our press release. Speaking on today's call is our CEO, Damian Skokan, who will provide an overview of VistraGard's 2nd quarter performance as well as an update on our many strategic growth initiatives. Next, Sebastian MacKinnon, our Chief of Travel Partners, will provide you with an update on our B2B efforts, followed by our CTO, Gonzalo Estebarena, who will discuss recent developments of our AI powered travel system, Sofia. Finally, Amit Singh, our CFO, will follow with a more detailed review of the quarter's financial results. After that, Damian will end our prepared remarks with a wrap up before we open the call for questions.

Speaker 1

Damian, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Luca,

Speaker 3

and good day, everyone. We are pleased with the performance of the business throughout the Q2 of the year. Our gross bookings grew by 4% year on year to $1,300,000,000 impacted by much higher than expected foreign exchange headwinds during the quarter. In constant currency, our gross bookings increased by a robust 37% year over year, which we believe is industry leading globally. Our commercial execution throughout the quarter remains solid as we continue focusing on higher margin package sales.

Speaker 3

We continue making significant progress on this front with packages as a percentage of gross bookings expanding 190 basis points year on year to 35%. Our strong package sales combined with our focus on profitable growth enable us to achieve a take rate of 13.8% in the quarter. As our product mix continued improving with higher margin non air revenues accounting for 64% of sales in the quarter, we saw top line growth accelerate to 12% year on year despite much higher than expected foreign exchange headwinds. Total revenues grew to $185,000,000 and we accomplished this in the seasonally weak second quarter. Importantly, when adjusting for FX impact, our revenues increased by a robust industry leading growth rate of 46% year on year.

Speaker 3

Also to note, the 2nd quarter had a significant impact from the severe flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, which resulted in temporary air cancellations in Brazil. Despite our incremental growth investments, particularly in selling and marketing, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $37,000,000 in the quarter, up by 22% year over year. As a reminder, the Q2 of last year's adjusted EBITDA included a one time benefit of $9,800,000 When adjusting for this benefit, adjusted EBITDA growth in the Q2 of 2024 was 82% year over year. Additionally, adjusted net income for the quarter was $30,200,000 our highest quarterly adjusted net income ever increasing by an impressive 3.97% year over year compared to adjusted net income of 6,100,000 in the Q2 of last year. Turning to our business segments, our B2C bookings during the Q2 reached a total of $1,100,000,000 Consumer demand was strongest in Brazil and Mexico, our key market and was concentrated in higher marketing packages and hotel sales.

Speaker 3

We continue to maintain our competitive edge through our compelling product offerings, strong sourcing and a market leading portfolio of payment options, which are a key differentiator with regards to Latin American customers as many finance their travel and have limited credit. We are also particularly proud of our new brand partnership with globally recognized artist, Shakira. She is the key feature in our exciting new campaign, Dream, Choose, Travel, the theme of which is inspiring and connecting people through memorable experiences. This partnership reinforces our brand across the region with a focus on strengthening and extending our leadership within Latin America. To see more details on this, please visit Despegar website at www.despegar.com.

Speaker 3

During the quarter, our B2B and white label business segments remained significant drivers of our growth. Specifically B2B gross bookings saw remarkable expansion of 43% year over year, while our emerging white label operations grew 7% year over year. In addition to the strong growth trends, we have observed over the recent quarters in our B2B segment, we continue focusing on expanding our commercial relationships. We are therefore particularly proud of the results we have recently achieved in the form of 3 new white lever partnerships and whose onboarding programs are already underway. Later in the call, Sebastian MacKinnon will provide you with more details on the performance of our B2B business as well as discuss its future growth potential.

Speaker 3

Next, I would like to discuss how our customer centric approach provides superior value to our customers. Customer loyalty remains one of our key priorities at Despegar. To that end, we continue to invest in and expand our loyalty program, Pazaporte Despegar, in order to drive customer retention and repeat rates. For the quarter, our program grew by 65% year on year to 27,900,000 members. As a result, approximately 75% of our transactions are now made by program members.

Speaker 3

Furthermore, an ever increasing proportion of our customers value Passaporte loyalty points as seen in points redemption activity, which continues to grow. During the quarter redemptions increased by 5.8 percentage points year on year, reaching 14.4% of total transactions. The Passaporte Despegar loyalty program provides significant value to our customers by offering a range of benefits and rewards that enhance their overall experience. Members of our program enjoy exclusive discounts, early access to special promotions and the ability to earn points on every purchase, which can be redeemed for future travel. This not only incentivizes customers to choose Espegard for their travel needs, but also fosters a deep sense of engagement and satisfaction.

Speaker 3

By rewarding loyalty, we encourage repeat business and build long term relationships with our customers. Moreover, the program's considerable growth reflects our commitment to continuously improving the customer experience. As the number of Passaporte Despegar members increases, we gain valuable insight into customer preferences and behaviors, allowing us to better tailor our offerings and provide more personalized services. This enhances user experience by ensuring that each interaction with Espega is relevant and rewarding, further solidifying our position as a trusted partner in travel. As discussed on previous occasions, innovation lies at the heart of Despegar.

Speaker 3

We combine our best in class technology platform, leading inventory and regional expertise to provide unmatched value to our air and hotel suppliers, while tailoring our offerings to the specific preferences of Latin American customers. A particular focus continues to be our mobile app, which is also a key tool for driving customer loyalty, repeat rates and cross selling opportunities. With downloads increasing 43% year on year to 18,000,000 a new all time high for Despegar, our app is demonstrating significant growth. Additionally, app transactions now represent around 50% of total transactions, further testifying to the user friendliness on value our customers attribute to our mobile app. Engagement through our mobile app offers tremendous value to our customers by providing a seamless and convenient search and booking experience.

Speaker 3

The Spigar app is designed to enhance the user experience with intuitive navigation, personalized recommendations and exclusive offers that cater specifically to the unique needs and preferences of Latin American travelers. This high level of engagement not only fosters loyalty, but also encourages customers to explore a wider range of services and products, leading to more cross selling opportunities and higher average ticket. By continuously innovating and improving our mobile platform, we ensure that our customers receive the best possible service, which in turn drives higher satisfaction and repeat usage. In addition to enhancing our app, we continue making significant advances with our AI travel assistant Sofia. As you will recall, we launched Sofia back in March to stay at the forefront of travel technology and reach the customer experience through more tailored and personalized services, increase cross selling opportunities, gain more insights into customer behavior and preferences, rise our operational efficiency, as well as strengthen our competitive mode.

Speaker 3

Later in the call, Gonzalo will discuss the significant increase in user engagement with Sofia this last quarter, as well as our vision to deploy this technology not only in our B2C offering, but also within our B2B solution and after sales services. Before turning the call over to Sebastian, I would like to briefly discuss a few more significant milestones and developments in the quarter. First, with the objective to streamline our business and focus more on our core operations, we have formed strategic alliance with World2Mate, the travel division of the Investar Group, Spain based global tourism company. As part of that transaction, Work2Me has acquired our destination management company or DMC business operating under the brand BD Experience. We have also entered into a long term agreement under which Wer2meet will operate as a preferred partner to Espegaara for the provision of destination services in the Mexican Riviera and the Dominican Republic.

Speaker 3

The divestment was effective July 30 and reflects a greater focus on technology and deploying capital while it generates the highest returns for our shareholders. As part of this transaction, almost 600 of our 4,600 total employees have transitioned to the new owner of the business. 2nd, we are pleased to announce that on June 28, the Espegar earned inclusion in the Russell Stock Indexes. The Russell indexes are among the most widely used benchmarks for small cap stocks. Joining the Russell Stock Indexes is a significant milestone for Despegar as we continue to leverage our top tier technology platform, scale, brand strength and local expertise to consolidate Latin America's fast growing travel market.

Speaker 3

Lastly, in line with our ongoing commitment to enhance our ESG standards, we published our 4 ESG report on June 20. This report marks the first time we have applied a double materiality approach incorporating GRI 2021 standard, which evaluate the broader impact of our actions on society and environment, as well as adopting SASB standard, which assess how these actions affect our financial performance. These steps underscore our dedication to sustainability and responsible business practices. We have accomplished a great deal in the first half of the year, bolstering our confidence in our ability to continue providing exceptional value to our customers and shareholders and positioning our company for sustained long term industry leading growth. We see many opportunities ahead and look forward to continuing updating you on all our achievements.

Speaker 3

I will now turn the call over to Sebastien, our Chief Travel Partner to expand on the growing opportunities in our B2B business.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Damian. I'm pleased to be here today. I would like you to provide you with some background information on Despegar's B2B business as this is an important context. Our B2B business has gained significant traction over the last 3 years. Since 2020, we have statistically developed our B2B approach to further monetize our market leading technology platform and inventory by offering it to other online and offline travel agencies across Latin America and now beyond the region.

Speaker 2

Currently, our inventory includes more than 1,500,000 accommodations, 230 airlines, as well as packages and more than 7,500 activities that are sold through 2 main avenues. 1 is by providing our entire travel content with exclusive rates through API connectivity to online travel agencies or OTAs and to major consolidators. Through these tailored channels, we reach almost 800 travel agencies, which generate approximately 50% of our B2B revenue with clients that include global players such as Expedia, Resto, Hotel Bets and Ctrip among others. Notably, 100% of the revenue from this segment comes from hotel sales. Additionally, we have developed an API for flight set to launch during the second half of this year.

Speaker 2

This will leverage our sourcing capabilities and drive additionally B2B revenue growth. The remaining 50% of the Espegar B2B revenue is generated through HTML solutions ideal for small and medium sized travel agencies in Latin America. This one stop shop solution offers hotels, flights and packages along with technological solutions back office support and customer service. In our regions fragmented market, which has few competitors of the Espegard scale, our commercial conditions are significantly more favorable than theirs, leading more than 15,000 small and medium offline agencies to purchase through us. This strategy levered by our best in class technological platform enable us to tap into and consolidate the past offline travel market within Latin America.

Speaker 2

Moving forward, we see material growth opportunities in this segment as we recently expanded our HTML service to Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. As a result of our adaptable technology and our unique inventory, we have more than tripled our B2B business in the last 4 years. But our ambition goes well beyond that current results. Since 2022, B2B top line growth has been industry leading. With our B2B gross booking increasing 43% in the Q2 of this year.

Speaker 2

Given this encouraging results and the opportunity we see to deepen our penetration in Latin America's travel market, we believe we can achieve very substantial growth over the near and midterm. In addition to the API and HTML operations of our B2B business, we are particularly excited about our white label operation. In recent years, the white label business has experienced significant growth, primarily driven by the ability of the travel offering to foster and strengthen customer loyalty outside the industry. This growth has been amplified by the recovery of the travel industry. Capitalizing on this opportunity, we have quadrupled our white label gross bookings over the last 5 years.

Speaker 2

Despeller white label solutions enables our partners such as Begovia, Librello, Mastercard or Liverpool to engage their customers more and keep them within their brand ecosystem, seeking to increase usage of their proprietary payment methods, thereby accumulating or redeeming loyalty points and to enjoy exclusive benefits. Through our leading technology platform extensive travel products offerings and exceptional customer experience, our more than 80 partners can significantly enhance the value that their customers attribute to our partners own loyalty program. A further testament of the quality of the customers experience and the scalability of our best in class technology platform are the high level partnership we recently signed in Mexico. In this country, we are excited to begin a long term partnership with a popular global ride hailing app. As part of this new 5 level partnership, we will launch a branded travel platform within this super app.

Speaker 2

This will engage millions of the app's customers to search Despegar's extensive travel inventory and book flights, hotels and travel packages at an affordable price. This new alliance marks our first partnership with a super app, which is rapidly expanding. We also signed another promising white label agreement with Elektra, Mexico's retail and financing service conglomerate. As you might know, Elektra operates a total of 14.50 points of sales throughout Mexico across its portfolios of brands. As part of this new partnership, we will provide our technology platform and technical expertise to operate the Yakis Elektra Kiosk, which will be installed in Elektra stores.

Speaker 2

We are poised to provide our new partners customers with state of the art travel inventory at competitive price and are looking forward to deepening our partnership with them in the future. Another notable and recent development under our white label B2B growth strategy is a white label partnership that we recently forged with Scotiabank in Chile. We are very excited for Scotiabank to join our growing lead of banks and loyalty partners across the region and are convinced that the bank's more than 1,000,000 clients will gain access to exclusive travel experiences through our platform. Through this API integration partnership, Scotiabank can further monetize its customer base and strengthen customer loyalty, leveraging our unique and extensive inventory of travel products available through our state of the art technology platform. Scotia customer will also have the opportunity to redeem loyalty points.

Speaker 2

Given the success of past white labeling partnership, we expect that our leading technology products will increase customer loyalty for Scotia Bank as well as generate additional revenue streams for them. Lastly, as Damian communicated in the past, we continue working to expand the Estrada's reach beyond Latin America. In fact, we are in active discussions with several prospective business partners in new geographies. We are convinced that our flexible technology platform, global inventory and competitive prices are a competing value proposition for all our partners and lay the foundations to our international expansion. To conclude my part of today's presentation, we are confident that both our competing B2B and high level solutions will contribute significantly to the Espegar's growth in the coming years, both within Latin America and beyond positioning the Espegar as a global travel technology company.

Speaker 2

Now over to Gonzalo for an update on our revolutionary AI travel assistant, Sofia.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Sebastian, and hello, everyone. Before diving into the details of the recent upgrades we made to Sofia, I am pleased to share with you that customer engagement with our AI assistant continues to rise. During the last quarter, daily conversations increased by 4x, while the share of users who returned to continue using Sofia after an initial interaction doubled. As we increase Sofia's knowledge base and enhance her capabilities, responses are becoming more appropriate, enabling Sofia to address a growing number of customer queries. The growing number of conversations combined with a feedback loop in which we score for needs addressed enables us to continuously refine our AI travel assistant, providing a differentiated service offering to our customers and making Sofia the travel companion of choice.

Speaker 3

During the quarter, we introduced several significant enhancements to Sofia. Today, I would like to discuss 4 that I believe are the most significant ones. First, we integrated after sales support into Sofia's conversational capabilities. Sofia can now access all previous and current reservations of a traveler and support the customer with information for the most frequent needs, ranging from cancellation questions to web checking data, also including the SPEAKER contextualized frequently asked questions and reservation information. The objective of this specific enhancement is for Sofia to provide personalized objective and human like answers to adequately address after sales questions and ultimately resolve customer inquiries without human assistance.

Speaker 3

The other objective, of course, is to reduce costs related to customer support. 2nd, in this quarter, we developed new conversational capabilities to steer the conversations through a sales path incorporating more commercial intent. The implementation of this new technology, which mimics what our best human agents do in our channels, has enabled Sofia to more accurately follow the flow of our natural conversation, with a particular focus on helping travelers narrow down alternatives to provide them with a precise relevant and adequate selection of, for example, hotel options. This differentiates Sofia from typical AI chat solutions, which tend to be good at answering particular questions rather than engaging the customer and creating opportunities to maximize the sale. The goal of our solution is to ultimately enhance conversion rates and cross selling opportunities.

Speaker 3

Another important attribute that we refined in this quarter is memory. Our customers can now continue a conversation with Sofia across multiple devices they had previously used. This significantly reduces repetitive input on the part of the customer, speeding up travel planning and improving conversion. It also gives Sofia the ability to present itself as more human like since it no longer gives the impression of having forgotten the traveler from a previous conversation. Lastly, we have expanded Sofia's knowledge base, which now encompasses many areas of SBIR general knowledge such as travel coupons, our loyalty program, Pazaporte, or for example, payment options.

Speaker 3

Also, trip planning features such as restaurant recommendations, suggestions on what to do at any given destination, as well as weather trends are currently available through a combination of the Chativity language model that powers Sofia and integrations with Google Maps and the Espegarzone content. These enhancements further enrich the customer's booking process, increase engagement with Sofia and ultimately provide a fully tailored booking experience. In summary, Sofia keeps on adding exciting features and customer engagement is improving as a result. Now moving on from our B2C AI agent, we are also excited to announce our ambitious plans to expand Sofia's capabilities within our B2B relationships. Our goal is to enable seamless integration of Sofia into the platforms of our B2B partners, making it an indispensable tool for their operations.

Speaker 3

We have had promising initial conversations and are thrilled by the interest shown by several partners who are eager to explore an integration of Sofia into their proprietary systems. This integration will empower them to drive customer engagement and enhance self-service capabilities. By leveraging Sofia, our partners will streamline their operations, improve user experience and ultimately achieve greater customer satisfaction. Our commitment to continuous improvement and innovation ensures that Sofia remains at the forefront of technology, providing unparalleled support and efficiency, not only in B2C, but also in B2B environment. Now before turning the call to Amit, I would like to share one last exciting development.

Speaker 3

Beyond Sofia's client facing capabilities, we are also leveraging generative AI to revolutionize our customer service. We are now analyzing 100% of our customer interactions using generative AI, aiming to identify service gaps and optimize our self serving offerings. This comprehensive analysis allows us to pinpoint areas for improvement and enhance the overall customer experience. One exciting avenue of refinement involves improving customer interactions with our service agents by analyzing conversations between clients and our service agent. Our solutions provide personalized feedback to each sales agent and their managers.

Speaker 3

This feedback focuses primarily on actionable insights regarding empathy management, helping agents to better connect with customers. Additionally, this analysis enables us to identify top performing agents and provide customized training opportunities to those who may be underperforming. We are very excited about the opportunities that lie ahead of us, as we continue to leverage technology to differentiate ourselves. From a commercial standpoint, we are enhancing Sofia's B2C and B2B capabilities while driving further efficiencies in after sales. These improvements not only bolster our overall business performance, but have also meaningfully improved customer satisfaction.

Speaker 3

I'll now turn the call over to Amit, who will review our Q2 performance.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Gonzalo, and good day, everyone. Our second quarter results were robust and demonstrate a consistently positive growth trend in terms of revenue and profitability. For the quarter, we reported total revenues of $185,000,000 growing at 12% year over year, mainly due to the growth in our key markets, Brazil and Mexico, where demand levels continue to be healthy. Throughout the quarter, we saw foreign exchange headwinds strengthen across the region at a level much higher than our expectation, which affected our 2nd quarter results. When excluding FX fluctuations, year over year growth in revenue in constant currency terms was a very robust 46%, which we believe is industry leading globally.

Speaker 4

Now let's take a more detailed look at our performance by the country, starting with Brazil, our most important market. As discussed on prior occasions, we continue to see very healthy demand trends in Brazil, exemplified by strong growth in transactions, which increased 26% year over year. We achieved these strong growth numbers despite the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, which affected approximately 5% to 8% of our transactions in Brazil during the quarter. Turning to average selling prices, which decreased 8.3% year over year to $4.72 largely due to FX headwinds. The growth in transactions partially offset by lower average selling prices increased our gross bookings, expanding by a robust 22% on a constant currency basis to $618,000,000 On an as reported basis, they grew 15%.

Speaker 4

When looking at our 2nd most relevant market, Mexico, we see that gross bookings increased by 9.4% year over year on an as reported basis to $294,000,000 for the quarter or 6% year over year growth in constant currency. This growth was primarily driven by an improving revenue mix with higher margin international travel packages contributing the most to Mexico's gross bookings. In addition to the growth in packages, we also focused on improving our market share in air travel with domestic air being the 2nd largest contributor to our gross booking growth in the quarter. Turning to the rest of Latin America, our gross bookings declined year over year by 10% to $460,000,000 for the quarter, primarily due to FX pressures that affected average selling prices in Argentina and Chile. However, on an FX neutral basis, gross bookings increased by 67% year over year in this area of our business.

Speaker 4

As part of our ongoing efforts to drive profitability, we continue focusing our commercial efforts on increasing non year revenue. So we are pleased that packages as a percent of gross booking grew by 190 basis points year over year, reaching 35% of our total bookings. In line with this strategy, our non year revenue reached 64% of total revenue or $118,000,000 As Damia noted, that drove a strong 13.8% take rate and contributed significantly to the $185,000,000 in consolidated revenues. This translated into accelerating top line growth of 12% year over year, which was even stronger on an FX neutral basis at 46% year over year. Although we continue to incrementally invest in growth in selling and marketing expenses, increasing 22% year over year in the Q2, we remain mindful of the FX headwinds and carefully consider our overall cost structure, specifically as it pertains to general and administrative and technology For the quarter, we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of $37,000,000 up by 22% year over year with a 19.8% adjusted EBITDA margin.

Speaker 4

As Damian explained in his opening remarks, last year's EBITDA included a one time benefit of $9,800,000 When adjusting for this benefit, adjusted EBITDA growth would have been 82% year over year. Damian also pointed to our impressive year over year growth in adjusted net income, which reached $30,200,000 for the quarter, increasing 3 97 percent year over year from $6,100,000 of adjusted net income during the same period last year. As a reminder, our adjusted net income excludes largely non recurring expenses from GAAP net income to facilitate comparison with Despegar's peers. Regarding our operating cash flow in the quarter, we generated $12,700,000 in cash compared to $28,900,000 of cash that we generated during the Q2 of 2023. While CapEx during the quarter remained largely constant at approximately $8,000,000 similar to expenditure in 2023, the decline in operating cash flow was mostly affected by a temporary change in working capital related to some specific sale campaigns in the quarter.

Speaker 4

For the quarter, we reported a total cash balance of $204,000,000 versus $244,000,000 for the same quarter last year. The decline in overall cash balance was in line with expectations given the temporary change in working capital described before, extraordinary dividends to preferred shareholders as well as factoring expenses. We anticipate rebuilding our cash balance in the second half of this year, in line with cash trends observed in prior years. Turning now to capital allocation. We continue to prioritize investments in our organic B2C, B2B and white label businesses to cement our leading position in Latin American region and drive growth beyond this region.

Speaker 4

As discussed before, we have plans to incrementally invest in loyalty, sales and marketing and technology in the coming quarters to help us further solidify our industry leading growth for the long term. We also continue to analyze potential M and A targets with the objective of either strengthening our regional position or expanding our reach beyond our home markets. When assessing a target, we maintain a disciplined analytical approach with a focus on generating meaningful revenue and cost synergies while enhancing our growth trajectory. Our strong cash position also provides flexibility to consider opportunities to increase capital efficiency by proactively managing our liabilities and financing costs. Now to talk about our outlook for the year.

Speaker 4

Our business continues to perform strongly despite some temporary flood related headwinds in Brazil as discussed before. In fact, several areas of our business are performing much better than our expectation at the beginning of the year. However, FX headwinds this year are turning out to be significantly stronger than our expectation at the start of this year. Moreover, we believe it was important for us to divest the DMC business, which currently is a material contributor to our revenues and further streamline our operations for an even more robust growth in the coming years. Taking all these factors into account, we have decided to lower our revenue guidance for the year from at least $820,000,000 to at least $760,000,000 We expect to maintain a very solid growth trend in the coming quarters in constant currency terms and we do expect our reported revenue growth in the coming years to materially accelerate from current levels.

Speaker 4

In addition to continuous solidification of our constant currency revenue growth profile, the company also continues to drive very significant operating leverage, while at the same time incrementally investing into our growth initiative. Moreover, we believe we have developed enough flexibility in our operating structure, which helps us hedge our cost structure against FX volatility. We therefore, despite lowering our revenue guidance, feel very confident in raising our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance from previous levels. We now expect full year adjusted EBITDA to be at least $160,000,000 versus our expectation of at least $155,000,000 before. Our updated adjusted EBITDA guidance implies year over year growth of almost 40%, which we believe is industry leading globally.

Speaker 4

Our robust constant currency revenue growth profile keeps us firmly committed to our long term vision of becoming the global travel technology industry leader. Our best in class technology platform, market leading brands and tailored commercial strategies combined with our market expertise will continue to form the backbone of our consolidation strategy while driving operational leverage. We are optimistic about the long term growth potential for Despegar and remain confident in our ability to capitalize on the positive secular trends that underpin the travel industry. I'll now turn the call back over to Damian for a few closing remarks.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Amit. To conclude, our 2nd quarter results were robust, showing a sequential acceleration of top line growth in reported terms. Industry leading constant currency growth and strong profit trends despite our recent incremental investments in sales and marketing.

Speaker 1

We

Speaker 3

continue to see solid growth trends in our underlying business. We also continue to maintain our regional brand leadership, which will be further strengthened through our brand partnership with Shakira. And our customer centric focus remains a key pillar of our growth strategy, which is supported by the Espegard's industry leading technology platform and commercial excellence. Regarding our B2B growth pillar, our recent successes in signing new white level agreements with leading brands further demonstrate our ability to provide substantial value to our business partners through a wide range of travel products available to their customers at competitive prices via our leading technology platform. We are particularly excited about the growth potential of this specific business segment both within Latin America and beyond.

Speaker 3

Importantly, our commitment to innovation remains steadfast as evidenced by our continuous improvement in our AI travel assistant, Sofia. We are also excited about the possibility of bringing the next level of Sofia to our B2B partners in the future, while also continuously driving operating efficiencies within the Espegard through the implementation of generative AI. Lastly, our key strategic objectives continue to be expanding package revenue, driving direct traffic through our robust high performing app and nurturing the continued success of our loyalty program. As we look ahead to the second half of the year, we remain committed to delivering unmatched travel experiences to our customers at affordable prices with the aim of further solidifying our leadership position in the market. Within that, let's open the floor for questions.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will open the floor for your questions. Your first question comes from Naved Khan with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Yes. Hi, great. Thanks a lot. So

Speaker 6

I just had

Speaker 5

a few questions, maybe first one on the guidance. So you've taken down the top line guide, you've raised the EBITDA guide, which is good to see. But within the top line takedown and then this increasing of this EBITDA, can you maybe just walk us through the different pieces because you have FX headwinds, you have a divestiture of the business and then maybe some impact of flooding, which maybe can you just help us kind of think about the relative impact of all of these pieces?

Speaker 4

Sure. Thanks for the question, Naved. So yes, as you mentioned, we have lowered our top line guidance, but at the same time raised our EBITDA guidance. So the puts and let me start with the top line first. The top line has a few puts and takes positives and negatives.

Speaker 4

First on the positive side, as we mentioned in the prepared remarks, the core underlying business continues to perform extremely strongly. And as I was mentioning, in several areas, we are doing better right now than we would be expected at the beginning of the year. One example being and that more towards the end of Q2 is our performance in Argentina, which currently is now doing better than what we expected it would be at the beginning of the year and we'll likely see the benefit of it hopefully in the coming quarters for this benefit to continue. So that's on the core positive side. But then at the same time, like we mentioned, the FX headwinds, especially if you see how the Brazil peso and the currency in Chile have moved against us in, let's say, June versus May.

Speaker 4

This has created very significant FX headwinds for the full year. At this point, we estimate based on our calculation around $35,000,000 $40,000,000 impact for the full year revenue numbers from FX. And then the third part like I mentioned, we divested DMC, which we believe is a very positive decision for the company. And as part of this divestment and we also formed an alliance with World2Meade, which we believe has long term value for us to drive synergies across various other countries and regions. We haven't specifically given the confidentiality of the deal, we haven't specifically talked about the exact dollar amount.

Speaker 4

But as we mentioned, DMC represents 600 of our 4,600 employees. Obviously, the revenue per employee of DMC is slightly lower, but that should give you some idea. And then finally, the flooding in the south of Brazil, which is a temporary event and already we are seeing come back to normal over there and in the next month or so we should be back to completely normal operations. But the impact over the last few months on a full year basis has around $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 negative impact on our revenue. So the core constant currency business, our removing FX and all is doing better than what we expected at the beginning of the year, but we have the headwinds from FX and the short term impact from flooding and then the DMC divestiture, which we believe is the right decision for the company at the time, which helps us further strengthen our growth going forward.

Speaker 4

Okay. Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3

Just to answer Just to talk about the

Speaker 4

margins part, your question earlier. We as we have gone through the year, obviously, year over year, we have continued to improve our EBITDA margins and our overall cash conversion and generation of net income. If you see just the first half of this year, we have more net income than the last several years combined. So the company continues to make progress on that front. But what I would say is in the first half of the year, the progress has been much more we've been very positively surprised by the progress that we have made versus what our expectation was at the beginning of the year.

Speaker 4

And that is giving us the flexibility and the ability to raise our EBITDA guidance despite the impact on the top line from or the temporary impact from top line from FX and EBITDA. And these efficiencies that we are driving are not just helping us counter the FX impact on top line. We are able to drive very strong EBITDA, but at the same time continue to invest very heavily in the business. We talked about investing in sales and marketing. We talked about our partnership with Shakira, the brand campaign, our advertisement, if you might have seen during Copa America.

Speaker 4

So we are doing a lot of things to further solidify our brand across Latin America and across the region and potentially beyond while and making all those investments, but at the same time also delivering very strong operating efficiencies quarter over quarter.

Speaker 5

Thank you. So maybe just on the maybe on the sort of a piece of that margin, it was part of the story. So I noticed that sales and marketing, especially the revenue was higher in Q2 on a year on year basis. Q1 actually lower. So was there something that was one off and might come off in the subsequent quarter?

Speaker 5

How was the right way to think about sales and marketing leverage? Are the increases mostly fixed costs or is it more variable? How should I think about that?

Speaker 4

No. I mean, Q2, like we mentioned, Shagira was a partnership that we signed in Q2 and it had, call it, some upfront, upfront as in it goes for a few quarters, but those type of expense related to it. But then we are building campaigns around it. So what I would think of these investments are more incremental, right, more but not like a sustained investment over long period of time. So these are more incremental investments that help us work with Shakira and drive our brand positioning in the regions and areas where we believe it can help us further solidify our top line in the coming years.

Speaker 5

So maybe just on that. So if I have to think about sales and marketing in the back half on a year on year basis likely to be elevated because of these, right?

Speaker 4

Yes. I mean, at similar we don't guide to, of course, these line items quarter by quarter. But our adjusted EBITDA margin sort of gives you an idea. If you look at the implied margin for the full year, that should give you an idea that we are planning to maintain margins around this level because of the investments that we are planning to make in the coming quarters and not just in sales and marketing. We have plans to invest in as we have talked about in the past, we have plans to incrementally invest in tech and content.

Speaker 4

We have plans to invest in our loyalty program. So we're driving operating efficiencies, but we want to make sure that we continue investing in all these areas, which position our company for very strong or hopefully positions us in an even better position in the coming years.

Speaker 5

Understood. Thank you guys and good application.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Rubin with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hi, thanks very much for the question and for the detail in the presentation. I'm curious to understand a bit on the country level, just looking at the FX neutral bookings, Brazil up 22% and that's despite the floods, but Mexico up 6%. So if you could help kind of give a sense of what's going on between the two markets and perhaps related you've talked about the FX translation headwinds. I'm wondering how you're thinking about the FX impact on demand, outbound demand from these countries amid the weaker currency effects. Those would be helpful.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. Hi, Andrew. This is Damian. Thanks very much for your question. What we are seeing in terms of FX impact on demand is basically hitting ASPs at the moment.

Speaker 3

We're not seeing an evolution of transaction that is below our expectations. So that's why we have the perspective that this is more of a transitory effect on shaft ASPs, because underlying demand remains strong. And basically the different impact of Brazil and Mexico has to

Speaker 2

do with the intrinsics of

Speaker 3

the different markets and the relevance of domestic versus international in each of the geographies. That's basically it.

Speaker 7

Okay, got it. That's helpful. And maybe take advantage of Sebastian being on the call here. On B2B, you talked about the active discussions in new geographies. I'd be curious to understand what the discussions are like as you're looking to expand in areas that are outside core LatAm, what kind of capabilities you might need that are similar, different, what kind of sales force or items on the ground in these other countries that you haven't necessarily had a presence in?

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you for the question. Yes, we are seeing a lot of opportunities in spite of the huge growth we are running now. Not only within Latin America, because we still see an opportunity to expand, for example, our HTML solution to different markets in Latin America. We have just launched Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and that doesn't request new investments is expanding our actual technology to those markets.

Speaker 2

So that's on regards of the small agencies and how we consolidate the off that is very relevant in Latin America. So huge opportunities still in Latin America to expand to these markets, but also we see opportunities to expand globally. So we can expand we will expand with this platform, but also with the API solution, where we are already in conversations with some new potential customers and with the white labels platform. That is really performing very good because it's unique in the sense that it's we have a very adaptable and flexible technology that gives solutions not only to big coil levels, but also to mid and small ones. And that is a huge competitive advantage that we are noticing not only here in Latin America, but also globally.

Speaker 2

So I think we have opportunities with like with the 3 businesses, with the HTML solution, with the API solutions and with FY level platform.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jacob Seed with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, this is Jacob. It's for Kevin. On the divestment of DMC, can you share what the revenue and the EBITDA contribution was prior to the divestment and what you expect going forward under the Alliance agreement?

Speaker 4

Sorry, I missed your initial part. Do you mind just repeating the question?

Speaker 6

Yes, yes. On the divestment of DMC, can you share what the revenue and the EBITDA contribution was prior to the divestment?

Speaker 4

Yes. I mean given the confidentiality agreement that we have with World2meet related to this, unfortunately, we can't provide the exact dollar amount of revenue contribution from DMC and that's why we're trying to provide metrics like it's 600 employees out of our overall 4,600 employees that were part of DMC. The revenue per employee was slightly lower for DMC given the nature of the business compared to the rest of the business. So hopefully this gives you some idea of the overall full year revenue impact. Obviously the transfer of DMC happens from 1st August.

Speaker 4

So the impact is for that part only that much part of the year from August until December. In terms of margins compag impact on the business, again, I would say that the DMC EBITDA margins were probably slightly lower than our overall company EBITDA margins. So as a company, for us, it was we believe the DMC with this new alliance with World2meet has a lot of potential for growth to this alliance. But within Despegar, this was we believe we didn't have the potential to grow this business at the same level or the very high growth levels that we had expectation for the rest of the business plus its margins were slightly lower than the rest of the business.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thank you. And another question, if I may, on the EBITDA raise, how much is that from the 13% of employees transitioning to the new owner versus other cost efficiencies, if you could break those out? Thank you.

Speaker 4

Yes. Not much from I wouldn't say not much from the employee transition. I would say this is primarily from the efficiencies that we are driving. I mean, if you look at our cost of sales and what we are doing in content, what we are doing in G and A and even in sales and marketing outside of the incremental investments, we are driving very strong efficiencies across all the line items. So there's not a very significant sort of positive impact from the divestment of DMC, but more from the efficiencies being driven in all the various line items.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

And we have time for one more question and that question comes from the line of Brett Knoblauch with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just on the gross margin line. It looks like this was a record quarter in terms of gross margins. How much additional expansion do you see in the model?

Speaker 6

And how should we be thinking about that line item going forward, particularly given the divestiture?

Speaker 4

Yes. I mean, again, I wouldn't put as much on the divestiture part. Yes, it has very small benefit. But if you look at our cost of sales from pre pandemic levels, we are down 30%. And then now as Gonzalo was talking about it earlier, the utilization of artificial intelligence throughout our cost structure is also going to help us materially in continuing to drive efficiencies there or is already helping us drive efficiencies there.

Speaker 4

Again, don't necessarily we don't necessarily guide to gross profit, but we hope that as we move forward and utilize more and more of artificial intelligence into various parts of our cost of sales, we might be able to drive more efficiencies.

Speaker 6

Perfect. And then if I could just add one more on operating cash flow. It looks like you guys did about $60,000,000 last year in the back half of the year. This year through the first half of the year, down a good bit. I guess, how should we expect operating cash flow for the back half of the year, especially given the second quarter was impacted by some working capital dynamics?

Speaker 6

Do you expect that to unwind?

Speaker 4

Yes. I mean, generally, if you look at the trends over the year, the second half is generally much stronger or significantly stronger operating cash flow generator for us compared to first half, especially quarter 4. And then this year specifically from quarter 2 to quarter 3 there is some movement given this given some of the sale campaigns and all that we launched in quarter 2 which will have a more positive impact going forward and had some call it the timing related impact in Q2.

Speaker 1

Perfect. I appreciate it. Thanks guys.

Speaker 4

Thank you very much.

Operator

And thank you. And now I will turn the conference back over to Mr. Skokin for any closing comments.

Speaker 3

Hi. So I wanted to thank everybody for your interest in Despegar and we look forward to talking to you again in our next earnings call. Thank you very much. Bye.

Operator

And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.

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Key Takeaways

  • In Q2, gross bookings reached $1.3 billion (+4% reported, +37% constant currency) and revenues totaled $185 million (+12% reported, +46% CC), while adjusted EBITDA rose 22% to $37 million (82% excl. a prior one-time benefit).
  • Despegar’s B2B and white-label segments powered growth—B2B gross bookings climbed 43% and new partnerships with super apps and banks are expanding travel offerings via Despegar’s platform.
  • The Passaporte loyalty program swelled 65% year-over-year to 27.9 million members (driving 75% of transactions), while mobile app downloads jumped 43% to 18 million and now account for about half of bookings.
  • Engagement with the Sofia AI travel assistant quadrupled daily conversations after adding after-sales support, memory features and commercial pathways, with plans to integrate Sofia into B2B partner systems.
  • Despite stronger FX headwinds and a DMC divestiture, full-year revenue guidance was lowered to $760 million but adjusted EBITDA outlook was raised to at least $160 million, implying ~40% growth.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Despegar.com Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00