Despegar.com, Corp. [DESP] Filings

Large accelerated filer

Accelerated filer

Non-accelerated filer

Emerging growth company

20-F 1 d281651d20f.htm FORM 20-F Form 20-F

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

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

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021

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

☐	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 1069, Floor 5

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina C1107CBU

Telephone: +54 11 4894-3500

(Address of principal executive offices)

Mariano Scagliarini, General Counsel

Juana Manso 1069, Floor 5

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina C1107CBU

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	Trading Symbol	Name of each exchange on which registered
Ordinary Shares, no par value	DESP	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, 2021		71,246,000 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.

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 whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. Yes ☒ No ☐

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

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
ITEM 4	INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY		41
ITEM 4A.	UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS		69
ITEM 5	OPERATING AND FINANCIAL REVIEW AND PROSPECTS		70
ITEM 6	DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES		92
ITEM 7	MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS AND RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS		101
ITEM 8	FINANCIAL INFORMATION		107
ITEM 9	THE OFFER AND LISTING		108
ITEM 10	ADDITIONAL INFORMATION		108
ITEM 11	QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK		121
ITEM 12	DESCRIPTION OF SECURITIES OTHER THAN EQUITY SECURITIES		121
PART II	.		122
ITEM 13	DEFAULTS, DIVIDEND ARREARAGES AND DELINQUENCIES		122
ITEM 14	MATERIAL MODIFICATIONS TO THE RIGHTS OF SECURITY HOLDERS AND USE OF PROCEEDS		122
ITEM 15	CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES		123
ITEM 16	[RESERVED]		124
ITEM 16A.	AUDIT COMMITTEE FINANCIAL EXPERT		124
ITEM 16B.	CODE OF ETHICS		124
ITEM 16C.	PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT FEES AND SERVICES		124
ITEM 16D.	EXEMPTIONS FROM THE LISTING STANDARDS FOR AUDIT COMMITTEES		125
ITEM 16E.	PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES BY THE ISSUER AND AFFILIATED PURCHASERS		125
ITEM 16F.	CHANGE IN REGISTRANT’S CERTIFYING ACCOUNTANT		125
ITEM 16G.	CORPORATE GOVERNANCE		125
ITEM 16H.	MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURE		126
ITEM 16I.	DISCLOSURE REGARDING FOREIGN JURISDICTIONS THAT PREVENT INSPECTIONS		126
PART III	.		126
ITEM 17	FINANCIAL STATEMENTS		126
ITEM 18	FINANCIAL STATEMENTS		126
ITEM 19	EXHIBITS		126

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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.

Financial Statements

Our consolidated financial information contained in this Annual Report derives from our audited consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2021 and 2020 and for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019 included in this Annual Report. Our consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“U.S. GAAP”) and presented in U.S. dollars.

Adjusted Segment EBITDA

This Annual Report includes certain references to Adjusted Segment EBITDA for each of our segments (Air; and Packages, Hotels and Other Travel Products). We use Adjusted Segment EBITDA for purposes of making decisions about allocating resources to our segments and to internally evaluate their financial performance because we believe Adjusted Segment EBITDA reflects current core operating performance of each segment and provides an indicator of each segment’s ability to generate cash. For 2020, we have changed our definition of Adjusted Segment EBITDA to exclude restructuring charges and acquisition costs. We have effected this change retroactively to the year 2019; however, we did not have restructuring charges in 2019.

Adjusted Segment EBITDA is calculated, with respect to each segment, as our net loss for the year exclusive of financial income/(expense), income tax, depreciation, amortization, impairment charges, stock-based compensation expense, restructuring charges and acquisition costs. See note 21 to our audited consolidated financial statements for our Adjusted Segment EBITDA and segment information.

Non-GAAP

Financial Information

Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA

This Annual Report includes certain references to Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA, a

non-GAAP

financial measure. We define Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA as net loss for the year exclusive of financial income/(expense), income tax, depreciation, amortization, impairment charges, stock-based compensation expense, restructuring charges and acquisition costs. For 2020, we have changed our definition of Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA to exclude restructuring charges and acquisition costs. We have effected this change retroactively to the year 2019; however, we did not have restructuring charges in 2019. See “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—A. Operating Results — Key Business Metrics” for a reconciliation of Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA to net loss. Consolidated 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 Consolidated 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 that we have derived from independent consultant reports, publicly available information, industry publications, official government information and other third-party sources, 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.

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Certain Operating Measures

This Annual Report includes certain references to the number of transactions and gross bookings, both operating measures. Number of transactions is the total number of travel customer orders completed on our platform during a given period. Gross bookings is the aggregate purchase price of all travel products booked by our travel 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$” are to the currency of Brazil, references to “Argentine pesos” and “AR$” are to the currency of Argentina and references to “Mexican peso” and “MX$” are to the currency of Mexico.

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”, “Despegar.com”, “Decolar”, “Decolar.com”, “Best Day”, “BD Experience”, “HotelDo” and “Koin”. 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.

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. These statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbors from liability provided by Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and the future events and circumstances discussed in this Annual Report may not occur or come into existence. In particular, the

COVID-19

pandemic, and governments’ extraordinary measures to limit the spread of the virus, have been disrupting the global economy and the travel industry, and consequently adversely affecting our business, results of operation and cash flows and, as conditions remain uncertain and changing, it is difficult to predict the full extent of the impact that the pandemic will have. Considering these limitations, you should not make any investment decision in reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report. In evaluating forward-looking statements, current and prospective shareholders should specifically consider various factors, including the risks listed below and those discussed under the caption “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors” in this Annual Report.

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These cautionary statements should not be construed by you to be exhaustive and are made only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Additional Information

Our principal website addresses 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.	[Reserved]

B.	Capitalization and Indebtedness

Not applicable.

C.	Reasons for the Offer and Use of Proceeds

Not applicable.

D.	Risk Factors

Summary of Risk Factors

The following summarizes some, but not all, of the principal risks provided below. Please carefully consider all of the information discussed in this Item 3.D “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report for a detailed description of these and other risks.

•

The ongoing

COVID-19

pandemic has disrupted the global economy and the travel industry and consequently, adversely affected our business, results of operations and cash flows, and it is difficult to predict the full extent of the impact that the pandemic will have on our Company.

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

We are exposed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates.

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•

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

•

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.

•

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

•

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 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.

•

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, which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

•

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

•

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

•

We are subject to payments-related fraud risks.

•

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.

•

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.

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

Our business depends on the continued growth of

e-commerce

and the availability and reliability of the internet in Latin America.

•

Growth of

e-commerce

transactions in Latin America may be impeded by the lack of secure payment methods.

•

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

•

Acquisitions could present risks and disrupt our ongoing business.

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•

We are subject to potential tax, labor and social security contingencies and tax liabilities related to uncertain tax positions.

•

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

•

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.

•

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.

•

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.

•

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.

•

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.

•

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

•

Consumer adoption and use of mobile devices creates new challenges.

•

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

•

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.

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

The ongoing

COVID-19

pandemic has disrupted the global economy and travel industry and consequently, adversely affected our business, results of operations and cash flows, and it is difficult to predict the full extent of the impact that the pandemic will have on our Company.

The outbreak of

COVID-19

rapidly spread across the globe in 2020 and disrupted worldwide economic activity and –in particular– the travel industry. Countries around the world, including across Latin America, adopted extraordinary measures to limit the spread of

COVID-19,

including imposing travel restrictions and bans, closing borders, establishing restrictions on public gatherings, instructing residents to practice social distancing, requiring closures of

non-essential

businesses, issuing stay at home advisories and orders, implementing quarantines, vaccination mandates and similar actions. During 2021 and the start of 2022, governments have continued to adopt measures in response to new variants of the virus, including most recently in response to the Omicron variant.

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The degree of containment of the virus, and the recovery in travel, has varied country by country. Additionally, the number of cases of

COVID-19

has fluctuated, sometimes increasing again after periods of decline, which has impacted the recovery of travel. While countries are vaccinating their residents against

COVID-19,

uncertainty over the efficacy of the vaccine against new variants of the virus may contribute to delays in economic recovery.

Demand for travel began showing early signs of weakness by the beginning of March 2020. Within a matter of days, with more news of the potentially extensive spreading of the virus to other parts of the world, travel demand began to decline significantly, and then the decline accelerated precipitously as governments implemented strict measures to limit the spread of the virus. During 2020, our gross bookings decreased by 70% as compared to 2019. However, during 2021, our gross bookings increased by 76% as compared to 2020, although demand for travel has not reached

pre-pandemic

levels. In addition, we have incurred additional customer service costs in connection with servicing travelers affected by the pandemic, which also has a negative impact on our results of operations.

The pandemic impeded global economic activity for an extended period and could impact the economy in the future, even as many restrictions have been lifted. The pandemic led to a significant decrease in per capita income and disposable income, increased and sustained unemployment, and a decline in consumer confidence, all of which significantly reduced discretionary spending by individuals and businesses on travel. In turn, these effects negatively impacted demand for travel services. While the global economy recovered during 2021, we cannot predict how the pandemic will affect the travel industry and our business in the long term.

As an intermediary in the travel industry, a significant portion of our revenue is affected by the operations of our travel suppliers. The effects of the pandemic and governments’ measures have forced many travel suppliers to reduce operations and to seek government support in order to maintain their businesses. The suspension or termination of services by major travel suppliers, in particular airlines, negatively impacts the products we can offer to our travel customers. We cannot predict the long-term effects of the

COVID-19

pandemic on our travel suppliers or the ways that the pandemic may fundamentally alter the travel industry. In particular, we may need to adjust to a travel industry with fewer and different suppliers as well as structural changes to certain types of travel.

While we have undertaken actions to mitigate the effects of

COVID-19

on our business, our cost-savings activities may lead to disruptions in our business, inability to enhance or preserve our brand awareness, reduced employee morale and productivity, increased attrition, and problems retaining existing and recruiting future employees, all of which could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

As the

COVID-19

pandemic and government containment measures evolve over time, it is difficult to estimate with accuracy the impact to our future revenues, results of operations, cash flows or liquidity. The impacts have been, and are expected to continue to be, significant and could continue to have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows for the foreseeable future.

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 a significant number of transactions from Brazil, Mexico and Argentina as well as other Latin American countries. In 2021 and 2020, Brazil accounted for 31% and 47% of our total transactions and Argentina accounted for 11% and 11% of our total transactions. In addition, on October 1, 2020 we completed our acquisition of Best Day, significantly increasing our exposure to Mexico. In 2021 and 2020, Mexico accounted for 27% and 20% of our total transactions.

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;

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•

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 and fraud;

•

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:

•

health-related risks, such as the ongoing

COVID-19

pandemic, or future outbreaks of Zika virus, H1N1 influenza, Ebola virus, yellow fever, avian flu, or other serious contagious diseases;

•

terrorist attacks or threats of terrorist attacks or wars;

•

fluctuations in currency exchange rates;

•

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

•

significant changes in oil prices;

•

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

•

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

•

political unrest;

•

high levels of crime;

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•

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

•

changes in immigration policy; and

•

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 could 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.

As an intermediary in the travel industry, a significant portion of our revenue is affected by prices charged by travel suppliers. During periods of poor economic conditions, airlines, hotels and other travel suppliers 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.

Current uncertain global macroeconomic and political conditions could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Our results of operations are affected by global macroeconomic and political conditions, including inflation, deflation, interest rates, availability of capital, energy and commodity prices, trade laws and the effects of governmental initiatives to manage economic conditions. Global macroeconomic and political conditions may also materially affect travel suppliers and travelers.

The current invasion of Ukraine by Russia has escalated tensions among the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (“NATO”) and Russia. The United States and other NATO member states, as well as

non-member

states, have announced new sanctions against Russia and certain Russian banks, enterprises and individuals. These and any future additional sanctions and any resulting conflict between Russia, the United States and NATO countries could have an adverse impact on our business. This invasion, ongoing military conflict, resulting sanctions and related countermeasures by NATO states, the United States and other countries are likely to continue to lead to market disruptions, including significant volatility in commodity prices, credit and capital markets which could have an adverse impact on our business and results of operations. In particular, we may be affected by the rise in the price of oil which may impact jet fuel and affect airfares. Additionally, international travel by Latin American customers to developed countries such as the United States and NATO countries may be reduced in the extent that the conflict escalates.

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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 dollar, but report our results in dollars, we face exposure to movements in currency exchange rates, particularly those related to the Brazilian real, the Mexican peso and the Argentine peso. The currencies of countries where we operate have historically experienced significant devaluations against the dollar. The Brazilian real depreciated 4%, 29% and 7.3% during 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively; the Mexican peso appreciated 3.7% during 2019 and depreciated 5.2% and 3.1% during 2020 and 2021, respectively; and the Argentine peso depreciated 59.0%, 40.5% and 22.1% during 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.

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 travel 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, particularly with respect to international travel.

Additionally, foreign exchange exposure also arises from

pre-pay

transactions, where we accept upfront payments for bookings in the travel customer’s home currency, but payment to the hotel is not due until after the travel 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.

We attempt to minimize our foreign currency exposures by managing natural hedges, netting our current assets and current liabilities in the same 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 effectively hedge our exposure, we could experience a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

We incurred net losses, operating losses and negative operating cash flows in 2021 and 2020 and may experience earnings declines or net losses in the future.

In 2021 and 2020, we incurred net losses of $104.6 million and $142.6 million, operating losses of $95.9 million and $177.2 million, and negative operating cash flows of $38.2 million and $118.3 million, respectively. In addition, as of December 31, 2021 we had an accumulated stockholders’ deficit of $31.7 million. We cannot assure you that we will achieve profitability in the future. Our ability to achieve profitability 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 may 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:

•

we fail to offer compelling products and services;

•

users increasingly engage with competing products and services instead of ours;

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•

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

•

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

•

we do not provide a compelling user experience;

•

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;

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

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 travel customers have the option to book travel directly with airlines, hotels and other travel suppliers who are increasingly focused on further refining their online offerings. Large, established internet search engines have also launched applications offering travel itineraries in destinations around the world, and meta-search companies who can aggregate travel search results also compete against us for travel customers. We also face competition from Airbnb and other providers acting in the alternative accommodations space. 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 travel 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.

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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 substantially all 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.

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. The travel customers’ awareness of our brand, which we foster via our online and offline marketing throughout our target markets in Latin America, has become one of the most important drivers of growth in our travel customer base, and we believe that our brands are well recognized in the Latin American travel market. 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 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 travel 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.

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 travel 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 travel customers or increasing our transaction volume in a sustainable manner. However, any increase in service fees may also result in a loss of potential travel 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 travel 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 when 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 airfare 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.

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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 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. In addition, in certain of the countries in which we operate, we may be liable to claims from customers for suspension or termination of services in the event an airline files for bankruptcy. 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.

The

COVID-19

pandemic and the extraordinary measures adopted by the governments disrupted the global economy and the travel industry in particular, and the business, results of operations and financial condition of many of our suppliers have been adversely affected, and may be further affected if the disruption to the economy and the travel industry continues. We cannot predict whether any of our travel suppliers will further significantly reduce or terminate their operations and product offerings. The effects of the pandemic and governments’ measures have forced many travel suppliers to reduce operations and to seek government support in order to maintain their businesses. The suspension or termination of services by major travel suppliers, in particular airlines, adversely affected and may continue to affect the products we can offer to our travel customers. It also adversely affected, and may continue to adversely affect, our Company’s ability to benefit from advance payments that we have made to these suppliers and could result in complaints or claims against us by travel customers seeking refunds for suspended or terminated bookings. While we believe such claims would be without merit in most of the countries in which we operate, we cannot assure that we will prevail in any such complaints or claims. Furthermore, in certain of the countries in which we operate, we could potentially be liable for suspended or terminated bookings in the event of bankruptcy by the airline or other travel service provider.

Governments approved large stimulus packages to mitigate the effects of the sudden decline in economic activity caused by the pandemic; however, we cannot predict the extent to which these measures will be sufficient to restore or sustain the business and financial condition of companies in the travel industry. Moreover, Latin America-based airlines may have more limited access to government stimulus packages to the extent Latin American governments have less resources to support local economies.

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 travel 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 spyware, viruses, phishing, denial of service and similar attacks 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 travel customers, damage our reputation and brands, increase our costs and/or cause losses. We have also faced risks related to our ability to maintain data and hardware security with respect to remote working during the

COVID-19

pandemic.

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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 travel customers’ or employees’ 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 travel 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.

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 travel 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.

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. 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 travel customers’ credit and debit card transactions for the facilitation of travel 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 assurance that the rates we pay for the processing of travel customer’s credit and debit card transactions will not increase, which could reduce our revenue thereby adversely affecting our business and financial performance.

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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.

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. Moreover, as a result of the effects of the

COVID-19

pandemic, we have reduced our headcount in certain areas and, as economic conditions and the travel sector continue to improve, we may encounter difficulties to increase our headcount.

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.

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:

•

the hosting of our websites;

•

certain software underlying our technology platform;

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•

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

•

third-party local tour operators to deliver

on-site

services to our packaged-tour customers;

•

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

•

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

•

processing credit card, debit card and banking payments;

•

providing computer infrastructure critical to our business; and

•

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 travel customers and harm our business.

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 2021, 2020 and 2019, substantially all our net sales were derived from payments effected through credit cards. Moreover, approximately 63%, 56% and 57%, of our total transactions in 2021, 2020 and 2019 were paid by installments through bank financing options, respectively. 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.

We rely on various banks to provide financing to our travel customers who elect to use an installment plan payment option. Under our agreements with local and regional banks, we offer consumers the possibility of financing their purchases under installment plans established, offered and administered by the credit card holders’ issuing banks. Under these agreements, the banks provide the financing arrangements to the consumers and they assume the risk of any potential payment default or delinquency by consumers. 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 travel 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.

In November 2021, the Central Bank in Argentina enacted Resolution 7407 which imposes restrictions on consumers’ ability to use credit card installment plans to finance international travel products and services, including air tickets, hotels and tourism services. These restrictions currently remain in place and we cannot predict how it will affect our business in Argentina in the future.

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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.

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, 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 travel 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 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 sector is 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 “ad blocking” software or apps.

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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.

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 travel 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 long-term growth strategies.

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

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

•

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

•

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;

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

our ability to build required technology;

•

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

•

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

•

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

•

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 consider and evaluate acquisitions of, or significant investments in, complementary businesses as part of our business strategy. Acquisitions involve numerous risks, and any acquisition could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In June and July

2019, we completed the acquisition of the Viajes Falabella travel companies in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia (together, “Viajes Falabella”). In October 2020, we completed the acquisition of Viajes Beda, S.A. de C.V. (“Best Day”), a leading travel agency in Mexico, with business in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic and the United States.

In August 2020, we acquired an 84% equity stake in Koin Administradora de Cartões e Meios de Pagamentos S.A. (“Koin”), a Brazilian online payment platform and on January 31, 2022, we acquired the remaining 16% equity stake in Koin. On January 13, 2022, we reached an agreement to acquire a 51% ownership stake in Stays.net, Brazil’s leading vacation rental channel manager, and we expect the closing to occur, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, during the second quarter of 2022.

The consummation of the Best Day acquisition considerably increased our business and operations in Mexico. As a result, our business and results of operations may be more affected by economic, political and social conditions in Mexico, including the country’s economy, fluctuations in the value of the Mexican peso, exchange control policies, inflation, interest rates, regulation, taxation, social instability, weather conditions and natural disasters, drug-related and other serious crime, and other developments in or affecting Mexico over which we have no control. In the past, Mexico has experienced several periods of slow or negative economic growth, high inflation, high interest rates, currency devaluation and other economic and social problems. These problems may worsen or reemerge in the future and could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We may seek to undertake additional strategic acquisitions in the future. 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.

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Moreover, even if we are able to consummate a transaction, acquisitions may involve significant risks and uncertainties, which risks may include: distraction of management and other employees from our

day-to-day

operations and the development of new business opportunities; difficulties in integrating the operations of the acquired business and technology with our existing business and technology; greater than expected costs, liabilities, expenses and working capital requirements; challenges retaining travel customers or suppliers of acquired businesses; regulatory restrictions that prevent us from achieving the expected benefits of the acquisition; we may not derive the benefits such as operational or administrative synergies we expect from acquisitions, which may result in us committing capital resources and not receiving the expected returns; difficulties in modifying accounting standards rapidly; challenges in the ability to properly access and maintain an effective internal control environment over an acquired company to comply with public reporting requirements; problems assimilating or retaining employees; and other unidentified issues or contingencies not discovered in our

pre-acquisition

investigations and evaluations of those strategies and acquisitions. Furthermore, acquisitions, even if successful, could result in changes to the overall business and risk profile of our operations.

Our investment in Koin exposes us to additional risks, including credit risk, and we may not be successful in growing Koin’s business.

We acquired a majority equity stake in Koin in August 2020 and acquired the remaining equity stake in January 2022. Koin is a financial services company currently focused on the

buy-now

pay-later

business in Brazil. Part of our strategy is to grow Koin’s business in Brazil and to expand its business into other markets in Latin America. Koin’s business involves additional risks not generally associated with our risks of operations, including:

•

measuring and limiting credit risk adequately, in particular given that the typical

buy-now

pay-later

Koin users are individuals with limited access to traditional financial services;

•

managing for and limiting payment defaults;

•

greater exposure to fraud-related risks, including identity theft and payment fraud;

•

additional compliance with legal obligations related to data privacy, data protection and information and cybersecurity; and

•

potential risks associated with commercial relationships with merchants.

We may not be successful in growing Koin’s business, including if we are not able to adequately manage these risks.

We are subject to potential tax, labor and social security contingencies and tax liabilities related to uncertain tax positions.

We are a party to a number of tax, labor and social security, regulatory and legal matters in the ordinary course of business. We estimate the range of our liability related to contingencies when we believe the amount or range of loss can be estimated. We record our best estimate of a loss when the loss is considered probable. When a liability is probable and there is a range of estimated loss with no best estimate in the range, we record the minimum estimated liability related to the lawsuits or claims. As additional information becomes available, we assess the potential liability related to our pending litigation and claims and revise our estimates. Significant judgment is required to determine the probability that a liability has been incurred and whether such liability is reasonably estimable. We base accruals made on the best information available at the time which can be highly subjective. Due to uncertainties related to the resolution of lawsuits and claims, the ultimate outcome may differ significantly from our estimates.

As of December 31, 2021, we have recorded reserves in an aggregate amount of $13.4 million to cover for probable losses related to various lawsuits, claims and disputes mainly with customers arising out of the ordinary course of our business. Additionally, as of December 31, 2021, we also recorded reserves in an amount of $0.6 million and $20.5 million mainly related to labor and social security and tax contingencies, respectively. Labor and social security contingencies are mainly related to litigation initiated by former employees and unasserted labor claims. Tax contingencies are mainly related to unasserted claims in the jurisdictions where we operate regarding value-added taxes (“VAT”) or other taxes.

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We also evaluate other potential contingent matters related to tax, labor and social security, regulatory and legal matters. We currently estimate possible losses related to these matters for which we have not recorded reserves, as they are not deemed probable, to be approximately in a range between $39.0 million to $66.0 million. We periodically evaluate the likelihood of probable and reasonably possible losses, if any, related to all known contingencies on an ongoing basis. Future increases or decreases to our accrued liabilities may be necessary and will be recorded in the period when such amounts are determined to be probable and reasonably estimable.

We evaluate our tax positions and establish liabilities for uncertain tax positions that may be challenged by local authorities and may not be fully sustained, despite our belief that the underlying tax positions are fully supportable. Uncertain tax positions are reviewed on an ongoing basis and are adjusted in light of changing facts and circumstances, including progress of tax audits, developments in case law, and closing of statute of limitations. Such adjustments are reflected in the income tax provision as appropriate. Our estimate of the potential outcome for any uncertain tax issue is highly judgmental. Although we believe we have adequately reserved for our uncertain tax positions, no assurance can be given with respect to the final outcome of these matters. As of December 31, 2021, we had established a reserve of $45.9 million for uncertain tax positions.

We are routinely audited by tax authorities.

At any point in time, we may have tax audits underway at various stages of completion. These audits include questioning the timing and the amount of income and deductions, and the allocation of income and deductions among various tax jurisdictions. For example, the Mexican tax authority is currently examining the income tax returns for the 2014, 2015 and 2017 fiscal years of our subsidiary, Viajes Beda. We received an examination report (

oficio de observaciones

) from the Mexican tax authority in connection with the 2014 income tax return of Viajes Beda, and have filed a settlement request (

acuerdo conclusivo

) before the Mexican taxpayer ombudsman (

Procuraduría de la Defensa del Contribuyente

) in order to settle the dispute with the Mexican tax authority. As of the date of this Annual Report, we are awaiting response from the Mexican tax payer ombudsman.

In October 2021, the tax authority in Argentina notified us that our application of VAT to certain of our international Air transactions was being challenged. While we believe that we have complied with all applicable tax laws, rules and regulations, the tax authority may determine that we owe additional VAT. As of the date of this Annual Report, we have not received any assessment, inquiry, audit, or any other form of claim on our application of VAT. We have not recorded any liability in connection with this matter. It is unclear what further actions, if any, the tax authority in Argentina will take with respect to the VAT. Such actions could include initiating an investigation, assessing additional taxes and/or imposing interest, fines, penalties or criminal proceedings. At this point, we are not able to reasonably estimate a loss or a range of loss because there are significant factual and legal questions yet to be determined.

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, tourism, 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.

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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 operations 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. For example, in August 2018, Brazil approved its first comprehensive data protection law (

Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais

or “LGPD”), which became effective beginning August 2020. If we fail to comply with 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. As of the date of this Annual Report, although we have already implemented the principal necessary measures to comply with the data protection law, this is an ongoing process. Since January 2022, the National Data Protection Bureau (

Autoridade Nacional de Proteção de Dados

or “ANPD”) has been issuing complementary LGPD regulation, requiring the implementation of additional measures to comply with the data protection law.

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.

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 travel customers and members to lose trust in our 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.

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Application of existing tax laws or regulations is 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.

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 in which 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. In addition, 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 digital economy. 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, which may subject us to interest and penalties, decrease the demand for our products and services if we pass on such costs to our travel 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 or results of operations.

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.

In addition, we have benefited from, and continue to benefit from, certain tax exemptions and incentive programs in various jurisdictions in which we have operations. When any of our tax exemptions or incentive programs expire or terminate, or if the applicable government withdraws or reduces the benefits of a tax exemption or incentive that we enjoy, our tax expense may materially increase and this increase may have a material impact on our results of operations. The applicable tax authorities may also disallow deductions claimed by us and assess additional taxable income on us in connection with their review of our tax returns. See “Item 4. Information on the Company — B. Business Overview — Regulation — Regulations Related to Taxation.”

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Taxing authorities have focused legislative efforts on tax reforms, transparency, and base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) prevention. As a result, policies regarding corporate income and other taxes in various jurisdictions are under heightened scrutiny and tax reforms are being proposed or enacted. In general, changes in tax laws may affect our effective tax rate, increase our tax liabilities, and impact the value of deferred tax balances.

Since releasing its interim report in 2018, the Organization for Economic

Co-operation

and Development (“OECD”) has proposed measures to address corporate tax challenges of the digital economy. These measures include a

two-pillar

approach, endorsed by member jurisdictions globally, that focuses on nexus, profit allocation, and minimum tax proposals. The OECD continues to develop the technical and implementation details of the approach for future adoption by jurisdictions. As the OECD continues its work, several countries have enacted or proposed measures to impose new digital services taxes on companies. However, certain countries have agreed to withdraw these digital service taxes once the OECD’s

two-pillar

approach has been implemented. The enacted and proposed measures may have an adverse effect on our business.

Our tax liabilities in the future may also be adversely affected by changes to our operating structure, changes in the mix of revenue and earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax balances, or the discontinuance of beneficial tax arrangements in certain jurisdictions.

We continue to work with relevant governmental authorities to clarify our obligations under existing, new and emerging tax laws, rules and regulations. However, due to the increasing pace of legislative changes and the scale of our business activities, any substantial changes in tax policies, enforcement activities or legislative initiatives may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations, and the taxes we are required to pay.

Laws and regulations in the BVI may subject us to potential liability.

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 and related regulations and guidelines, 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. As we are tax residents in the United States, we believe these substance requirements are not applicable to our Company.

We are subject to anti-corruption and economic sanctions laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we operate, and 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.

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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 officers, directors, 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 officers or directors violate such laws or other similar laws governing the conduct of our business (including local laws), we or our officers or directors 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.

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, travel 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 consists 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.

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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 ’party trademarks and content, we may be required to license additional technologies, third ’party 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. In December 2019, the Argentine administration enacted Decree No. 34/2019 (extended by Decree No. 39/2021) that duplicates the amount of the statutory severance payments payable to employees hired before December 13, 2019 and fired between December 13, 2019 and December June 13, 2021. Also, by Decrees Nos. 329/20, 487/20, 624/20, 761/20, 891/20 and 39/21, all terminations without cause have been forbidden until December 31, 2021.

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. According to the data published by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (National Statistics Institute or “INDEC”) regarding the evolution of salaries in the private and public sectors in Argentina, salary increases in both sectors have been of approximately 28% and 24.2%, for 2020 and 53.4% and 54% for 2021, 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.

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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 at a competitive disadvantage

vis-à-vis

competitors which do not comply with such requirements.

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

In the past, government and consumer protection agencies have received a substantial number of complaints about our products, which represent a small percentage of our total transactions but could increase in the future. Many of these claims are related to the behavior of our suppliers. From time to time, we are involved in disputes or regulatory inquiries that arise in the ordinary course of business. The number and significance of these disputes and inquiries have increased as our business has expanded. We have responded to inquiries from regulatory agencies; however, we are likely to receive inquiries in the future, which may lead to actions against us. If during these inquiries we were found to violate any laws or to constitute unfair business practices, we could be subject to civil damages, enforcement actions, fines or penalties. Such actions or fines could require us to restructure our business processes in ways that would harm our business and cause us to incur substantial costs.

Because volume and growth in the number of new travel customers are key drivers of our revenue and profitability, travel customers’ complaints or negative publicity about our customer service could severely diminish consumer confidence 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 travel 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 our travel customer’s complaints effectively. In addition, beginning in March 2020 we experienced an increase in complaints from travel customers in connection with requests for cancellation and reimbursement of bookings due to the

COVID-19

pandemic. In light of government

stay-at-home

orders and other business interruptions and the increase in cancellation requests, the ability of our customer service team to ensure prompt and accurate resolution to requests, irregularities and disputes was affected. In 2021 certain resolutions passed in certain countries, such as Brazil and Colombia, have protected travel agencies from these situations. If we do not handle travel customer complaints effectively, our reputation and brand may suffer and we may lose our travel 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.

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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 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 on Expedia for substantially all of the hotel and other lodging products that we offer for all countries outside Latin America.

Substantially all hotel and other lodging products that we offer through our platform for all countries outside Latin America are provided to us 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.

Pursuant to the Expedia Outsourcing Agreement, Expedia pays monthly marketing fees to us, which are calculated as a percentage of the gross booking value of the bookings that we sourced through Expedia during that month. We are required to maintain a level of bookings through Expedia such that those marketing fees equal at least $5.0 million in a

six-month

period; otherwise, Expedia may require us to pay a $125.0 million termination fee. On August 20, 2020, we entered into an amendment with respect to the Expedia Outsourcing Agreement, whereby the parties have agreed, among other things, to waive Expedia’s termination rights under the agreement relating to minimum bookings requirements during the ongoing pandemic through December 31, 2021, subject to certain conditions. The waiver of Expedia’s termination rights has expired in accordance with its terms and we have resumed compliance with the minimum booking requirements.

In addition, the agreement was amended and restated in November 2019 in order to, among other things, allow us to source a limited percentage of our hotel bookings outside of Latin America without Expedia and from certain

pre-agreed

properties.

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However, if such transactions exceed the agreed percentage threshold during a

six-month

period, we may be required to pay compensation to Expedia; and if our

non-Expedia

sourced bookings outside of Latin America exceed the agreed percentage of gross bookings outside of Latin America for two consecutive quarters, or a higher agreed percentage threshold in one quarter, Expedia may elect to become our exclusive provider outside of Latin America once again. If such transactions exceed the agreed percentage of the minimum bookings set forth therein for any three consecutive months or any three months within a

six-month

period, then Expedia may require us to pay a $125.0 million termination fee. The Expedia Outsourcing Agreement may also be terminated by Expedia, and we may be required to pay the termination payment, if the termination by Expedia is for our material breach of certain terms under the 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 July 18, 2023 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, we may continue to be limited from terminating 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.

The majority of our cash balance is held in U.S. dollars. Foreign currency exposure is minimized by managing natural hedges, such as netting the Company’s current assets and current liabilities denominated in the same foreign currencies, by managing short term loans and short term investments and engaging in forward contracts for hedging purposes.

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.

As conditions are uncertain and changing rapidly, we cannot assure you that our business will not require additional funds for operating activities in the future, particularly if the effects of the pandemic persist, nor can we assure you that we will be able to access new funding on favorable terms or at all.

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. We generally experience seasonal fluctuations in the demand for our travel services. Our most significant market, Brazil, and the rest of South America where we operate, are located in the Southern hemisphere where summer runs from December through February and winter runs from June through August. Our most significant market in the Northern hemisphere is Mexico where summer runs from June through August and winter runs from December through February. Accordingly, traditional leisure travel bookings in the Southern hemisphere are generally the highest in the second, third and fourth quarters of the year as travelers plan and book their winter and summer holiday travel. The number of bookings typically decreases in the first quarter of the year. In the Northern hemisphere, bookings are generally the highest in the first three quarters as travelers plan and book their spring, summer and winter holiday travel. The seasonal revenue impact is exacerbated with respect to income by the nature of variable cost of revenue and direct sales and marketing costs, which is typically realized in closer alignment to booking volumes, and the more stable nature of fixed costs.

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The continued growth of international operations or a change in product mix may influence the typical trend of the seasonality in the future, and there may also be business or market driven dynamics that result in short-term impacts to revenue or profitability that differ from the typical seasonal trends.

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.

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, Mexico 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.

Increased focus on our environmental, social and governance responsibilities have and will likely continue to result in additional costs and risks, and may adversely impact our reputation, employee retention and willingness of customers and partners to do business with us.

Institutional, individual, and other investors, proxy advisory services, regulatory authorities, consumers and other stakeholders are increasingly focused on environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) practices of companies. As we look to respond to evolving standards for identifying, measuring, and reporting ESG metrics, our efforts may result in a significant increase in costs and may nevertheless not meet investor or other stakeholder expectations and evolving standards or regulatory requirements, which may negatively impact our financial results, our reputation, our cost of capital, our ability to attract or retain employees, our attractiveness as a service provider, investment, or business partner, or expose us to government enforcement actions, private litigation, and actions by stockholders or stakeholders.

Our ability to achieve ESG goals and initiatives is subject to numerous risks including: (1) the availability and cost of limiting or eliminating our use of carbon-based energy sources and technologies; (2) evolving regulatory requirements affecting ESG standards or disclosures; (3) our ability to work with partners and providers that can meet our sustainability, diversity, and other standards; (4) our ability to recruit, develop, and retain diverse talent; (5) the impact of our organic growth and acquisitions or dispositions of businesses or operations on our ESG goals; and (6) customers’ actual demand for

ESG-oriented

product offerings, which may be more expensive and less available than other options.

The standards for tracking and reporting on ESG matters are relatively new, have not been harmonized, and continue to evolve. The disclosure frameworks we choose to align with may change from time to time and may result in a lack of consistent or meaningful comparative data from period to period. Ensuring there are systems and processes in place to comply with the various ESG tracking and reporting obligations will require management time and expense. In addition, our processes and controls may not always comply with evolving standards for identifying, measuring, and reporting ESG metrics, our interpretation of reporting standards may differ from those of others and such standards may change over time, any of which could result in significant revisions to our goals or reported progress in achieving such goals.

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If our ESG practices do not meet evolving investor or other stakeholder expectations and standards or regulatory requirements, then our reputation, our ability to attract or retain employees, and our attractiveness as an investment, business partner, or investor could be negatively impacted. Similarly, our failure or perceived failure to pursue or fulfill our goals, targets and objectives or to satisfy various reporting standards within the timelines we announce, or at all, could also have similar negative impacts and expose us to government enforcement actions, private litigation, and actions by stockholders or stakeholders.

Risks Related to Latin America

Latin American countries are subject to political and social instability.

Political and social developments in Latin America, including the results of elections, 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, general elections in Brazil, including to elect the president, are scheduled to be held in October 2022. Historically, election years in Brazil, especially presidential elections, are marked by political uncertainty which generates greater instability and volatility. Moreover, the Brazilian Supreme Court recently overturned criminal convictions and restored former President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva’s political rights, allowing him to run in the upcoming presidential election.

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 condition 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.

For example, according to the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (

Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estadística

, or “IBGE”), Brazil real GDP increased 1.1% in 2019 and decreased 4.1% in 2020. For 2021, the IBGE has preliminarily estimated an increase in GDP of 12.3%. 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.

According to the Mexican National Institute for Statistics and Geography (

Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía

or “INEGI”), Mexico’s real GDP decreased 0.3% in 2019 and decreased 10.0% in 2020. For 2021, the INEGI has preliminarily estimated an increase in real GDP of 5%.

The Argentine economy has experienced significant volatility, including multiple periods of low or negative growth and high levels of inflation and currency depreciation. According to restated information released by INDEC, Argentina’s real GDP decreased 2.1% in 2019 and decreased 11.8% in 2020. For 2021, the INDEC has preliminarily estimated an increase in real GDP of 10.3 %.

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.

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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 4.3% in 2019, 4.52% in 2020, and 10.1% in 2021. In the past, Brazil has recorded high inflation rates, which, combined with other measures taken by the Brazilian government to fight inflation and speculation on what measures would be taken, has materially adversely affected the Brazilian economy and contributed to economic uncertainty in Brazil, which increases volatility in the Brazilian capital markets and may materially adversely affect us.

In Mexico, the inflation published by the INEGI was 2.83%, 3.15% and 7.36% in 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively.

In Argentina, inflation has materially undermined the Argentine economy and the government’s ability to foster conditions that permit stable growth. According to measurements from INDEC of the national consumer price index, cumulative consumer price inflation

(Inflacion Acumulada de Precios al Consumo)

for 2019 was 59.8%, for 2020 was 36.1%, and for 2021 was 50.9%.

Inflation in Brazil, Mexico and 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 government measures to control inflation, adopted presently or in the future, remain uncertain. Measures taken by the governments of these countries to control inflation have often included maintaining a tight monetary policy with high interest rates, thereby restricting the availability of credit and retarding economic growth. Inflation, measures to combat inflation and public speculation about possible additional actions have contributed materially to economic uncertainty in many of these countries.

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.

For example, the Brazilian real has historically experienced frequent, sometimes significant, fluctuations relative to the dollar. The real depreciated 4%, 29% and 7.3% during 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively, based on official exchange rates as reported by the Brazilian Central Bank. A devaluation of the Brazilian real relative to the dollar could create inflationary pressures in Brazil and cause the Brazilian government to, among other measures, increase interest rates. Any depreciation of the Brazilian real may generally restrict access to the international capital markets and would also reduce the dollar value of our results of operations. Restrictive macroeconomic policies could reduce the stability of the Brazilian economy and harm our results of operations and profitability. In addition, domestic and international reactions to restrictive economic policies could have a negative impact on the Brazilian economy.

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In Mexico, the peso appreciated 3.7% during 2019, depreciated 5.2% and 3.1% during 2020 and 2021, respectively, in each case, with respect to the dollar.

Fluctuations in the value of the Argentine peso continue to affect the Argentine economy. During the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, the Argentine peso depreciated 59%, 40.5% and 22.1%, respectively, with respect to the dollar. As a result of the greater volatility of the Peso, the former government announced several measures to restore market confidence and stabilize the value of the Argentine peso. During 2019, with the intention to reduce the amount of Argentine pesos available in the market and reduce the demand for foreign currency, the government established a regime for stricter control of the local monetary base and foreign currency controls, which remain in effect.

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.

In 2001 and 2002, Argentina imposed exchange controls and transfer restrictions substantially limiting the ability of companies to make payments abroad. During 2019, the Argentine government established a new regime for a stricter control of the local monetary base, which was meant to initially remain in place until December 2019, in an attempt to reduce the amount of Argentine pesos available in the market and reduce the demand for foreign currency. Complementing these measures, in September 2019, foreign currency controls were reinstated in Argentina. For further information on this topic, see Item 10. “Additional Information – Exchange Controls”.

Under current Argentine law, we are restricted from accessing the official foreign exchange market to make dividend payments to us from our Argentine subsidiaries without prior approval from the Argentine Central Bank. In addition, Argentina recently enforced some measures that control and restrict the capacity of individuals and companies to exchange Argentine pesos for foreign currencies, conditioned to prior approval from the Argentine Central Bank, which could eventually restrict the ability to exchange Argentine pesos for other currencies, such as dollars. Restrictions currently apply to dollar purchases via bank account and in cash. In December 2019, the Argentine government implemented a new reverse withholding tax PAIS, with a rate of 30% on transactions involving –among others– the acquisition by Argentine residents of foreign currency; foreign services through credit and debit cards; services to be provided abroad, contracted through Argentine travel and tourism agencies –wholesale or retailers–; and international passenger transport services (by land, air, aquatic and road). In addition the Argentine Federal Tax Authorities (AFIP) issued in September 2020 General Resolution No. 4815/2020, which imposes an additional 35% reverse withholding tax applicable on same transactions by Argentine residents.

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.”

Those kinds of exchange controls could have a material adverse impact on our operations, business, financial condition and results of operations. It is uncertain whether the Brazilian and/or Argentine governments will or will not increase such controls or restraints which could affect the ability to make payments to foreign creditors or suppliers, and dividend payments to shareholders.

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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 2002. 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, and the current

COVID-19

pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

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 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

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, 2021, funds affiliated with L. Catterton held warrants exercisable for 12.55% of our outstanding ordinary shares, Expedia held 10.94% of our outstanding ordinary shares, Waha Capital held Series B Preferred Shares convertible into 6.17% of our outstanding ordinary shares, and Arisaig Global Emerging Markets Consumer Fund (Singapore) Pte Ltd (“Arisaig”) held 5.04% of our outstanding ordinary shares. If L. Catterton, Expedia, Waha Capital, Arisaig or other investors acquire or continue to own and control, directly or indirectly, a significant 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.”

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.

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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 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 from the standards applied to U.S. domestic issuers. For instance, we are not required to:

•

have a majority of our board of directors be independent;

•

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

•

have regularly scheduled executive sessions with only

non-management

directors;

•

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

•

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

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. 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 have implemented additional procedures and processes for the purpose of addressing the standards and requirements applicable to public companies. In addition, sustaining our growth will also 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 and results of operations.

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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, 2022.

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.

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. 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 U.S. 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.

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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.

Pursuant to the Amended and Restated 2016 Stock Incentive Plan, we may grant restricted stock units (“RSUs”) and stock options to our officers, directors and/or employees. As of December 31, 2021, we had 1,892,459 shares of common stock reserved for new stock-based awards under the Amended and Restated 2016 Stock Incentive Plan. We issue new shares to satisfy the exercise or release of stock-based awards.

During 2021, we continued issuing RSUs as our primary form of stock-based compensation. During 2021, 2020 and 2019 we granted an aggregate of 723,908, 1,409,680 and 340,565 RSUs to certain directors, senior management and other personnel. During 2021 and 2020 we did not grant any stock and during 2019 we granted an aggregate of 225,903 stock options. 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 officers and directors 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 officers and directors 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.

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However, a BVI court may impose civil liability, including the possibility of monetary damages, on us or our officers and directors 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 officers and directors, 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 officers and directors 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.

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 officers and directors 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 officers and directors or our principal shareholders than you would as a shareholder of a corporation incorporated in the United States.

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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. While pursuant to our memorandum and articles of association our Series A Preferred Shares and Series B Preferred Shares are entitled to semi-annual dividends and quarterly dividends, respectively, our memorandum and articles of association do not require us to pay any dividends on our ordinary shares.

Anti-takeover provisions in our 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 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 memorandum and articles of association:

•

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 seven directors divided into three classes, with each class having a three-year term. Class I’s, Class II’s and Class III’s terms will expire at the Company’s annual meetings in 2024, 2022 and 2023, respectively. 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.

•

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.

•

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.

•

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.

•

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.

General Risk Factors

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.

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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 demand and/or other 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.”

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 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. The key brands for Best Day, which we acquired in October 2020, are Best Day, BD Experience and HotelDo. Koin is our online payment and consumer lending services platform in Brazil since August 2020.

Our principal executive office is located at Juana Manso 1069, Floor 5, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina C1107CBU, Telephone: +54 11 5171-3500. 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.

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 offerings to include hotels.

		• Launched sites in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Puerto Rico.

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2010		• Launched sites in El Salvador and Honduras, reaching our 20th market.

		• Cumulative one million travel customers served.

2012		• Launched our mobile apps on Android and iOS.

		• Expanded offerings to include packages, rental cars and cruise products.

2013		• Reached one million downloads of our mobile app.

		• Expanded our offerings to include destination services.

		• Expanded hotel offerings to include vacation rentals.

2014		• Cumulative 10 million travel customers served.

		• Our mobile app is included in the iTunes Store’s “Best of 2014”.

		• Launched travel affiliates program.

		• Expanded our offerings to include travel insurance and travel assistance.

2015		• Reached 10 million downloads of our mobile app.

		• 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 offerings to include our bus product.

		• Expanded our destination service offerings to include our local concierge product.

2017		• Initial public offering and listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

2018		• Launched sales call centers in Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. • Developed tour operation business.

2019		• Completed rebranding our core business, including logos, website and images in order to update our outward facing content. • Acquired Viajes Falabella in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia. • Entered into an API connectivity agreement with CTrip International Travel (Hong Kong) Ltd., for the integration of Despegar direct lodging offering in Latin America with CTrip’s platform. • Entered into a ten-year exclusive agreement with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited, to launch a co-branded credit card in Argentina in partnership with Mastercard.

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2020		• Acquired Best Day, a leading travel agency in Mexico. • Acquired an 84% equity stake in Koin, an online payment platform in Brazil. • Entered into a co-branding agreement with Banco Santander to launch a co-branded credit card under our loyalty program in Brazil. • Entered into a ten-year commercial partnership agreement with Tarjeta Naranja, the leading branded proprietary credit card issuer in Argentina and a subsidiary of Grupo Financiero Galicia. • Entered into an Investment Agreement for the issuance 150,000 Series A Preferred Shares of the Company and warrants to purchase 11,000,000 ordinary shares of the Company at an exercise price of $0.01 per share (the “Warrants”) with LCLA Daylight LP, an affiliate of L Catterton Latin America III, L.P. • Entered into an Investment Agreement for the issuance of 50,000 Series B Preferred Shares to Waha LATAM Investments Limited, an affiliate of Waha Capital PJS.

2021		• Entered into a co-branding agreement with Banco Invex to launch a co-branded credit card under our loyalty program in Mexico. • Published our first corporate sustainability report, which constitutes a first step in the Company’s ESG process. • Launched our loyalty program in Mexico, through which customers have access to exclusive discounts and collect points that can be exchanged for our services. The loyalty program marked the one-million-member milestone during 2021.

2022 (to date)		• Reached an agreement to acquire a 51% ownership stake in Stays.net, Brazil’s leading vacation rental channel manager for a total price of approximately $3.1 million. Stays.net is a preferred software partner for leading international booking platforms to offer vacation rentals. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to occur in the second quarter of 2022. • Acquired the remaining 16% equity from minority shareholders of Koin.

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, mainly known by our two brands, Despegar, our global brand, and Decolar, our Brazilian brand. In Mexico we are best known by our brands Best Day, BD Experience and HotelDo, which we acquired in October 2020. Koin is our online payment and consumer lending services platform in Brazil since August 2020.

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 travel products and access to our travel customers. 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 2021, 2020 and 2019, we had approximately 3.8 million, 2.5 million and 5.2 million travel customers, generating $322.8 million, $131.3 million and $524.9 million in consolidated revenue, respectively.

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Our gross bookings were $2.5 billion, $1.4 billion and $4.7 billion during 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. Our results of operations for 2021 and 2020 have been affected by the

COVID-19

pandemic, which has significantly impacted the global travel industry.

Latin America online travel bookings are expected to continue growing in the coming years, once the effects of the

COVID-19

pandemic have subsided. 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.

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 238 airlines and over 660,000 hotels, as well as approximately 1,260 car rental agencies and approximately 800 destination services suppliers with more than 12,000 activities. Our business benefits from network effects: our large travel customer base helps us to attract additional travel suppliers and, in turn, a larger network of travel suppliers helps us to attract new travel 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 travel 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, 2021, our apps have approximately 60.1 million cumulative downloads from the iOS App Store and Google Play, 14.5 million of which were downloaded in the last two years, and we believe they are the most downloaded OTA apps in Latin America. During each of 2021, 2020 and 2019, mobile accounted for approximately 71%, 60% and 60% of all of our user visits, and approximately 46%, 46% and 39%, 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.

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. To date, we have invested more than $1.5 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 travel customers. In 2021, 2020 and 2019, 55%, 65% and 64% of our travel 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.

In the second quarter of 2020, the travel market in Latin America –as in other parts of the world– came to a complete halt as a consequence of the ongoing

COVID-19

pandemic and governments’ measures to limit the spread of the virus. Governments around the world, including in Latin America, imposed travel restrictions and bans, closed borders, established restrictions on public gatherings, instructed residents to practice social distancing, required closure of

non-essential

businesses, issued stay at home advisories and orders, implemented quarantines, mandated vaccinations and similar actions. During 2021 and the start of 2022, governments have continued to adopt measures in response to new variants of the virus, including most recently in response to the Omicron variant.

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The degree of containment of the virus, and the recovery in travel, has varied country by country. Additionally, the number of cases of

COVID-19

has fluctuated, sometimes increasing again after periods of decline, which has impacted the recovery of travel. While countries are vaccinating their residents against

COVID-19

uncertainty over the efficacy of the vaccine against new variants of the virus may contribute to delays in economic recovery.

COVID-19

has also had broader economic impacts, including an increase in unemployment levels and reduction in economic activity, which could lead to a recession and further reduction in consumer or business spending on travel activities, and thereby may negatively impact the timing and level of a recovery in travel demand.

While it is impossible to predict at this moment how the travel industry, globally and in Latin America, will ultimately be impacted, we believe that the Latin American travel industry will continue to grow, and the following trends will largely continue in the longer term once the effects of

COVID-19

pandemic have subsided.

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 travel suppliers to reach travel 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. 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:

•

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.

•

Increasing adoption of mobile devices, including smartphones

. The use of mobile devices in Latin America is expected to continue to grow. With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, mobile has become a prominent tool for travelers to search, discover and purchase travel services.

•

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.

•

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.

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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.

Our Competitive Strengths

We are the leading OTA in Latin America, offering our travel 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 2021, 2020 and 2019, we had approximately 3.8 million, 2.5 million and 5.2 million travel customers, respectively, primarily in Latin America, generating $322.8 million, $131.3 million and $524.9 million in revenue and approximately $2.5 billion, $1.4 billion and $4.7 billion 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 22%, 19.6% and 18.9% of all airline tickets purchased through GDS in the region during 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively, according to Amadeus. Additionally, we believe we provide our travel customers with the largest travel portfolio among Latin American OTAs, with access to over 238 global airlines and over 660,000 hotels globally as well as approximately 1,260 car rental agencies and approximately 800 destination services suppliers with more than 12,000 activities. Also, we have accumulated approximately 3.1 million user-generated reviews in total as of December 31, 2021, of which 0.2 million, 0.4 million and 2.3 million were submitted in 2021, 2020 and 2019, 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 40% during 2021 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 travel 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 our travel 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 travel customers with a comprehensive solution for their travel needs.

We benefit from network effects: our large travel customer base helps us to attract additional travel suppliers and, in turn, a larger network of travel suppliers helps us to attract new travel 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 travel 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. Best Day, which we acquired in October 2020, has a leading brand awareness in Mexico. According to search engine trend data that is based on the relative number of searches of brand related keywords on Google during 2021, we had an approximate 18% 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 19 markets, representing 98% of the region’s population, and with a leading OTA presence in key markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. In our three largest markets, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, we have operated for more than 20 years. 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 travel 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 travel suppliers grow their businesses, all to the benefit of travel customers 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 63%, 57% and 57% of our transactions in 2021, 2020 and 2019 were paid in installments. Our agreements with local banks allow us to offer installment plans without assuming collection risk from the travel 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, 2021, our mobile apps have more than 61.1 million cumulative downloads from the iOS App Store and Google Play (14.5 million of which were downloaded in the last two years). In addition, our iOS App Store and Google Play apps were rated 4.7 and 4.2 stars as of December 31, 2021. During 2021, 2020 and 2019, mobile, which includes both mobile web and our mobile apps, accounted for approximately 71 %, 60% and 60% of all of our user visits, and approximately 50%, 45% and 39%, respectively, of our transactions. Additionally, transactions via mobile increased by approximately 43% in 2021 compared to 2020 and decreased by approximately 50% in 2020 compared to 2019, mainly as a result of the

COVID-19

pandemic. 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 travel customers using mobile devices have historically made more repeat transactions than travel 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 travel customers, after they have arrived at their destination.

Many of our travel 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 travel 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 travel customer, we extensively analyze the data we collect to identify and highlight the most valuable products and destinations in each travel customer interaction. By gathering and analyzing data in real-time, we are quickly able to assess and react to changes in travel 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.

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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 travel customers. We also developed our Despegar’s traveler benefits program in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, to increase customer loyalty, where customers accumulate points to be redeemed for travel benefits, including airline tickets and hotel stays.

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 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 664 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 Travel Customers

We had approximately 3.8 million, 2.5 million and 5.2 million travel customers for 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively, primarily in Latin America. Our travel 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 travel customers are traveling for leisure, although we do have some independent business travelers as well.

Our Products and Services

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 2.9 million user-generated reviews over the last three years ended December 31, 2021, of which 0.2 million, 0.4 million were submitted in 2021 and 2020, 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 mostly offer our products online through our website and mobile applications and use data and analytics to personalize the travel 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.

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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 travel customers booked approximately 3.6 million, 2.4 million and 6.2 million transactions in our Air segment using our platform in 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

We provide our travel customers with access to over 42 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 travel customers in a time efficient and transparent manner. Travel customers are quickly and easily able to evaluate a broad range of fares and airline combinations, and 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. Travel 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 3.2 million, 1.7 million and 4.4 million in 2021, 2020 and 2019, 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 travel customers lower prices than are available for individual products and helps us to cross-sell multiple products in a single transaction.

Hotels

Through our platform, travel customers can search, compare and book reservations at more than 660,000 hotel’s globally through our direct network and third-party inventory. In addition, since 2013 our hotels offering includes vacation rentals.

Travel 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.

Travel customers can also indicate amenity preferences such as business services, internet access, fitness centers, swimming pools and more. Travel customers can also view hotel pictures and read hotel reviews from other travel customers on our platform. Our platform features approximately 2.9 million user-generated reviews over the last three years ended December 31, 2021, of which 0.2 million and 0.4 million were generated in 2021 and 2020, respectively.

As of December 31, 2021, 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 48 third-party channel managers.

In 2021, 2020 and 2019, 8%, 6.2% and 8.4%, respectively, of our gross bookings were attributable to supply provided to us by affiliates of Expedia. Expedia, the beneficial owner of 10.94% of our ordinary shares outstanding as of December 31, 2021, holds certain rights in its capacity as a shareholder. For more information on our relationship with Expedia, see “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions —B. Related Party — Relationship with Expedia” for more information.

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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, our travel customer pays us at the time of booking, and we pay our hotel suppliers after the travel customer checks out. Under the

pay-at-destination

model, the travel customer pays the hotel directly at checkout and we either receive our commission later from the hotel suppliers or from the travel customer, at the time of booking. For the year ended December 31, 2021, 88% of the hotels booked in our platform were under the prepay model and 12% under the

pay-at-destination

model.

Other Travel Products

We also offer other travel products on our platform. We provide our travel customers access to approximately 1,260 car rental agencies, more than 180 bus carriers, six cruise carriers, approximately 850 destination services, suppliers with more than 12,000 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.

Vacation Rentals:

Currently, we offer a large selection of approximately 379,000 vacation rentals worldwide, mainly through our Expedia Outsourcing Agreement and through direct sourcing in Latin America.

Destination Services:

As from October 2020 with the closing of the Best Day acquisition, we offer a wide range of

in-destination

services as an opportunity for us to offer attractions, tickets, tours and activities and local concierge services in more than 200 hotels, 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 travel customers. In order to guarantee the best experience, our team provides support and advice during the full customer’s journey.

B2B:

Our B2B business platform offers online wholesale travel products to our partners, including travel agencies, banks, hotels and airlines, as well as white label services for major travel vendors, providing the most extensive travel inventory in Latin America with the best technological solutions. This business has been boosted with the incorporation of HotelDO after the acquisition of Best Day and has being growing with the recovery of the market.

Car Rentals:

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

Cruise Tickets:

Beginning in July 2020, as a consequence of the

COVID-19

pandemic we are not offering cruise tickets. Prior to July 2020 we offered cruise tickets to travel customers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico and had relationships with six cruise carriers.

Travel Insurance:

We offer travel insurance through a third-party provider in Latin America, Universal Assistance Card, with whom we entered into an exclusivity agreement in 2021. Travel 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 travel customers are offered the opportunity to purchase travel insurance.

Bus Tickets:

Beginning in July 2020, as a consequence of the

COVID-19

pandemic we are not offering bus tickets. Prior to July 2020 we offered bus tickets in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile and had relationships with suppliers that gave us access to more than 180 bus carriers.

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 travel 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 available in the markets in which we operate.

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We generally partner with banking institutions to allow our travelers the possibility of purchasing the product of their choice through financing plans established, offered and administered by the banks, which we believe differentiates us from other global travel agencies which either do not offer installment plans or offer them 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 transaction volume. Credit card travel customers may choose from a range of installment plan offerings and terms from different financial institutions with which the travel customer holds or obtains a credit card. Many of these installment plan offerings are interest-free to the travel customer. Installment plans allow travel customers to make larger purchases than they may otherwise be able to make in a single payment.

Banks bear risk of fraud, delinquency or default by travelers. When travelers elect to finance their purchases, we typically receive full payment for our services within a short period of time after booking is completed and confirmed, regardless of the payment plan selected by the traveler. However, in certain countries, we receive payment from the bank as installments become due regardless of when the traveler actually makes the scheduled payments. In most cases, we receive payment before or during when the related travel occurs and the period between completion of booking and reception of scheduled payments is typically one year or less.

Beginning in August 2020, through our subsidiary, Koin, we provide consumer lending services through its

buy-now

pay-later

solution that allows customers to finance their transactions through installments, on a simple to use platform, with accessible interest rates and no bureaucracy, thereby allowing them to have a higher purchasing power with limited requirements. Besides the travel industry, Koin has commenced operating in other sectors such as health-tech,

ed-tech,

home appliances, apparel, among others. During 2021, lending has been mostly limited to Despegar’s travel customers in Brazil.

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. 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 travel 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.

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Affiliates

We have relationships with a network of over 7,000 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 allow 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.

Acquisition of Viajes Falabella

On June 7, 2019, we completed the acquisition of Viajes Falabella in Argentina, Peru and Chile, and on July 31, 2019 we completed the acquisition of Viajes Falabella in Colombia, for a total consideration of $23 million. As of the date of this Annual Report the price has been fully paid. Concurrent with the acquisition, we entered into a

10-year

commercial agreement with Grupo Falabella which provides for several marketing and promotional activities, and other activities to promote future business, including the license for the “Viajes Falabella” brand name for an additional $4 million. The license for the ‘Viajes Falabella’ brand name is for an initial period of four years and is renewable for

one-year

periods thereafter at our option, for a

pre-agreed

price, provided that we meet a service standard set forth under the contract.

The acquisition of Viajes Falabella provides travel customers of both companies with access to an enhanced travel and tourism product and service offerings, wherever and however they want to book travel (mobile, online, apps, call center and store-within-store locations). This includes air, hotel and insurance travel packages, as well as significant

non-air

travel offerings. In addition, travel customers are 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. Following the acquisition of Viajes Falabella, as of December 31, 2021 we operated 85 sales travel locations in Chile, Peru and Colombia with Tiendas Falabella having exited the Argentine market.

Acquisition of Best Day

On January 27, 2020, we entered into an agreement to acquire Best Day, a leading travel agency in Mexico, with business in Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic and the United States, subject to the occurrence of certain closing and business conditions. The agreement was amended on June 11, 2020 and again on September 9, 2020. The acquisition was completed on October 1, 2020. The purchase price was fixed at $10.3 million, after application of net indebtedness and working capital adjustments, and will be payable in cash on October 1, 2023. In addition, the agreement provides for an earnout for the benefit of certain sellers ranging from $0 to $20 million, based solely on the performance of our share price during a measurement period of six months prior to the fourth anniversary of the closing date. The earnout, if any, will be payable in cash on October 1, 2024.

Viajes Beda primarily operates in Mexico and to a lesser extent in South America, including Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay among others, and the United States. Transporturist primarily operates in Mexico. Best Day primarily provides travelers with several product offerings, including airline tickets, packages, hotels and other travel-related products, through its online platforms, call centers and offline presence, and provides travel suppliers a technology platform for managing the distribution of their travel products and access to traveler customers. The Best Day also provides ground transportation services and group tours to travelers principally across the main tourist destinations in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Best Day offers these travel products and services through its brands “Best Day” and “BD Experience”. In addition, the Best Day offers hotel inventory, as well as transfers, activities, car rental, packages and tours to travel agencies through its tradename “HotelDo,” a leading hotel wholesale aggregator in Mexico and Latin America. Best Day also provides white label services for major travel vendors, including over 70 partnerships with key players in the travel industry—airlines, hotels, retails stores and banks.

We believe that we will be able to benefit from Best Day’s brand recognition in Mexico and synergies resulting from the combination of our businesses and technology platforms. We have already migrated Best Day’s online B2C business into our platform, which is more robust than Best Day’s prior platform from a performance, conversion, fraud, errors and marketing perspective.

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Our increased size and presence in Mexico has also allowed us to obtain better terms from suppliers in Mexico and has made us a more attractive partner for suppliers to work with. We believe we will be able to obtain further synergies as we further integrate Best Day into our business, in particular with respect to synergies related to marketing and general and administrative expenses, expansion of

in-destination

products to other countries and cross-selling of

in-destination

products currently provided by Best Day to current customers.

Acquisition of Koin

On August 20, 2020, we completed the acquisition of an 84% equity interest in Koin. Koin is specialized in the consumer lending sector through its

buy-now

pay-later

solution which offers financing to merchants’ customers, predominantly in the travel sector in Brazil. We executed the acquisition through the conversion of an outstanding trade receivable we had with Koin for $4.0 million as of the acquisition date. On January 31, 2022, we acquired the remaining 16% equity in Koin for $3.2 million, payable in eight equal consecutive installments ending on August 31, 2022. As of the date of this Annual Report, we paid four installments amounting to $1.6 million. Koin is now a wholly-owned subsidiary.

Koin, a pioneer in the

buy-now

pay-later

landscape in Latin America with more than five years of credit experience, provides, through one single integration, a solution that allows customers to finance their transactions in installments, on a simple to use platform, with accessible interest rates and no bureaucracy, thereby allowing them to have a higher purchasing power with limited requirements. In addition for merchants and

e-commerces,

Koin generates incremental sales by imposing conversion rates and by providing access to these new customers.

The travel industry is one of the largest markets for

buy-now

pay-later

offerings due to high average selling prices and due to Latin America’s growing adoption of

e-commerce.

Our acquisition of Koin adds to our value proposition as we expand the alternatives for our customers to purchase travel products with a payment option that doesn’t require a credit card or bank account.

In addition to the travel industry, Koin has commenced expanding into new verticals to further enhance its credit models and increase the repeat usage rate of their customers. Koin is already operating in some industries such as health-tech,

ed-tech,

home appliances, apparel, among others. Furthermore, Koin signed contracts with some large

e-commerce

platforms as Vtex and Magento in order to increase its merchants base to commercialize its product with limited integration efforts.

We believe that we can capitalize an opportunity for Koin’s solution as Latin American

e-commerce

is one of the fastest growing in the world, local customers are accustomed to paying in installments and there is a large percentage of the population underserved by traditional financial institutions.

Agreement to Acquire Ownership Stake in Stays.net

On January 13, 2022, we reached an agreement to acquire a 51% ownership stake in Stays.net, Brazil’s leading vacation rental channel manager for a total price of $3.1 million. Completion of the transaction is expected to occur in the second quarter of 2022 subject to customary closing conditions.

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, except for buses, cruise lines and vacation rentals. We included our sales call number on the homepage of each website. This complements our online platform, helping us to gain new travel customers and interact with those who might not be digitally enabled. We currently have call center operations for our Despegar, Decolar, Best Day and Viajes Falabella. These sales call centers were closed during the

COVID-19

pandemic; however, starting from January 2022, we

re-opened

our sales call centers for certain countries, including Mexico and Argentina, and we expect to

re-open

our Brazilian sales call center in May 2022.

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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

in-house

customer service centers in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, we rely on outsourced services to provide 24/7 support to our customers for issues that cannot be resolved through our platform. Outsourcing certain functions allows better cost controls as well as gaining flexibility.

During 2021 we implemented a range of initiatives aiming to improve customer experience while optimizing costs:

•

scaled customer support with better flexibility integrating 46% more resources and 50% more providers in multiple countries;

•

improved customer experience through resources and process

re-engineering,

where phone service became two times better and time to resolve customer needs became 40% more efficient. Additionally, we continue to invest in our self-service platform improving its performance even as suppliers’ commercial terms kept changing; and

•

improved platform productivity by 25%.

All these accomplishments were achieved while managing a volatile Latin American environment that included unexpected government regulations, COVID resurgence with the Delta and Omicron variants, as countries’ borders reopened. We believe that the design of our existing business model as well as systems can scale to meet further increases in call volume.

As a result of our efforts we managed to increase our post-trip net promoter score (“NPS”), up to 60% during 2021 from 53% during 2020.

Revenue Management

From an organizational perspective, we have consolidated revenue management, marketing and product development efforts under the umbrella of our Commercial Direction. This new structure allows us to work in a more coordinated fashion and to improve our attribution model. This newly launched attribution model includes the development of new tools and testing capabilities that allow us to enhance spending allocation and direct investments to pull the levers that are most profitable to us.

Technology and Data

We use our technology platform to improve the travel 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 630 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. Given the market demand for technology professionals, we have implemented a series of incentive to retain our highly-skilled technology professionals.

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 travel customers. We invest heavily in understanding our travel 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 travel 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 travel 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 travel 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 travel 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 travel customer data. In addition, we have developed and use internal policies and procedures to protect the personal information of our travel 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.

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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.

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:

•

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

•

search websites and apps, such as Google and its travel businesses, and

e-commerce

and group buying websites and apps;

•

alternative accommodation and vacation rental businesses, such as Airbnb;

•

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

•

smaller online travel agencies lacking a

pan-regional

presence.

In addition, our travel customers have the option to book travel directly with travel suppliers, including airlines, hotels and other travel suppliers 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, reliability and adoption of

e-commerce

by travelers in the markets in which we operate. We believe our brands, scale, operational and technological capabilities, including our local knowledge, marketing expertise and technology platform, 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”, “Despegar.com”, “Decolar”, “Decolar.com”, “Best Day”, “BD Experience”, “HotelDo” and “Koin”. 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 consists of applications that we develop

in-house

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.”

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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 travel 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.

Mexico

As a travel agency in Mexico, Bestday.com and Despegar.com.mx must be registered in the National Tourism Registry (

Registro Nacional de Turismo

or RNT) created by Decree dated June 26, 2015. The local regulation on commercial tourism activities is comprised of: (i) General Tourism Law and its regulations, which regulate tourism, as well as the processes derived from the activities carried out by the people during their trips and temporary stays in places other than their usual environment, with leisure purposes and other reasons; (ii) the resolutions issued by the Ministry of Tourism; (iii) The Federal Consumer Protection Law and its regulations, which promote and protect consumer rights and culture and seek the equity, certainty and legal security between suppliers and consumers.

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 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.

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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 sub accrediting 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, among other provisions,

sub-accrediting

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. The definition of

sub-accrediting

entity provided by the Payment Arrangement Services Rule is not precise enough to confirm that our Brazilian subsidiary would be subject to it. After carrying out several discussions with the Central Bank of Brazil, financial institutions and other participants involved in the payments arrangements, our Brazilian brand Decolar demonstrated to the Central Bank of Brazil that: (i) Resolution 3,682 does not apply to its business; (ii) Decolar should not be deemed a

sub-accrediting

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, which on September 2018 issued a list of the entities and companies which should not be subject to Resolution 3,682 as well as their classification. Decolar has been classified as a

non-subaccreditor,

this is a simple business establishment, and not as a marketplace entity as provided in the Resolution.

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.

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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 of 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, s

Despegar.com, Corp. [DESP] Filings
20-F	[2022-04-29]
20-F	[2021-04-30]
20-F	[2020-04-10]
20-F	[2019-04-26]
F-1	[2018-08-16]
20-F	[2018-04-24]
F-1	[2017-08-15]