Despegar is Latin America’s leading Online Travel Agency (OTA), with bookings worth around $3.5 billion per year, from customers in 21 countries. One of the most recognised travel brands in LATAM, they offer customers a digital booking platform for flights, hotels and travel-related experiences.
As technology has reduced barriers to entry, the OTA industry has become increasingly competitive, with major players like Google offering new ways to book. To remain relevant to travellers, Despegar wanted a brand that would differentiate them and ensure they remained the choice platform for bookings.
Conversations centred around price were out of step with travellers who increasingly focus on the travel experience and want to build an emotional connection with the brands they travel with.
Despegar’s team was committed to creating memorable travel experiences, as well as great user experiences, but this was not conveyed by their brand. The brand needed a holistic review, to transform their relationship with customers from transactional to inspirational.
The key to repositioning Despegar was to understand the relationship customers have with travel. We undertook consumer research to make sure the brand’s foundations were rooted in the emotions travellers feel and the motivations behind their travel-related decision-making. By ensuring it was based on customers’ needs, the new brand could build a connection with them, and – over time – a community of users that felt Despegar was a partner in their search for memorable travel experiences.
