Dutch multinational company Prosus has announced its acquisition of Despegar, a leading online travel agency in Latin America, for $1.7 billion. The deal is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2025 and aims to strengthen Prosus’s position in the growing Latin American travel market while accelerating its global expansion strategy.
Dutch multinational company Prosus has announced its acquisition of Despegar, a leading online travel agency in Latin America, for $1.7 billion. The deal is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2025 and aims to strengthen Prosus’s position in the growing Latin American travel market while accelerating its global expansion strategy.
Founded in 1999, Despegar is one of the largest online travel platforms in Latin America, offering a wide range of travel services, including flights, hotels, car rentals, and vacation packages. In recent years, as the travel industry has rebounded, Despegar has attracted a large number of consumers thanks to its mature online platform and localized services. Prosus stated that this acquisition will help sustain its growth in Latin America and, by integrating Despegar's resources, further enhance its competitiveness in the global travel industry.
This acquisition is significant for the Latin American travel market. With Prosus’s financial support and technological innovation, Despegar is expected to improve service quality, expand cross-border travel offerings, and contribute to local economic recovery. The deal not only highlights Prosus’s strategic position in the global travel market but also provides valuable insights for Chinese companies looking to expand abroad. In recent years, an increasing number of Chinese tech companies, particularly internet and e-commerce platforms, have been actively exploring international markets. For example, Ctrip (now Trip.com) has aggressively expanded internationally, particularly in Asia, Europe, and North America, by acquiring, collaborating, and localizing its services to increase its market share in the global travel industry. Similar to Prosus’s acquisition of Despegar, Ctrip adopted a similar strategy when it acquired the Swiss travel company Skyscanner in 2016, enhancing its ability to penetrate global air travel search and tourism product markets.
Overall, both Prosus and Ctrip’s overseas expansion strategies underscore the importance of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in international competition and provide a reference for other Chinese companies aiming to expand globally. In the travel industry, particularly in Latin American and Asia-Pacific markets, expansion remains a key battlefield for companies in the coming years.