When Prosus announced the purchase of Despegar , the holding company of the Decolar brand, for US$1.7 billion, the market interpreted it as the group simply reinforcing its digital consumer portfolio, which includes brands such as iFood , OLX, and Sympla .
Eight months after the integration, signs are beginning to emerge that the deal with Decolar opens up opportunities for the creation of the first independent financial arm focused on the hotel sector in Latin America.
The inspiration comes from what iFood has been doing in recent years as a financial solutions platform for restaurants. The delivery company has moved beyond being an order marketplace and, through iFood Pago, has become a credit structurer offering receivables financing, payments, POS terminals, and financial management products.
For Decolar, this is the next big frontier and the major bet for 2026: to create the "hotel bank," reconfiguring the capital structure of independent tourism in the region for a fragmented market with a huge credit deficit.
“The hotel sector is very poorly served by banks. We have data, technology, and relationships. It makes perfect sense to hand over payments, credit, and management to these partners,” says Renan Pinto, CFO of Decolar, to NeoFeed .
The independent accommodation market (guesthouses, hostels, family-run hotels, small properties) is exponentially larger and more fragmented than the restaurant sector. It is also one of the segments with the lowest penetration of structured financial services.
Testing is already underway in Brazil and Argentina. According to the executive, the vertical is expected to be launched in a structured way throughout 2026, following the logic of "jet skis" – small, quick, interactive tests that can scale into a new profitable business – which guided iFood during its years of expansion.
On the partner hotel's dashboard, a pop-up offers access to credit. The process is simple, digital, and based on information that Decolar already collects. "It's exactly what iFood did with restaurants. And the initial responses have been positive," says the CFO.
If the hotel credit and payments pilot program scales as expected, Decolar will combine distribution, data, technology, and credit capabilities—something that doesn't exist in the portfolio of any other online travel agency (OTA).
Triple the volume of reservations.
By acquiring Decolar, Prosus put three important business decisions into practice: being an investor in consumer technology with an operational focus; understanding that all large technology companies, such as Google , Amazon , and Microsoft , are part of an ecosystem; and delving into the world of artificial intelligence.
“We looked at our assets and saw a very strong presence in Latin America through iFood, which is a transaction machine, a very strong presence in Europe with OLX, and in India with PayU,” says the executive.
"Based on these geographic assets, I can build ecosystems, and the acquisition of Decolar was a piece that would fit perfectly," he adds.
With its integration into Prosus, Decolar aims to triple its gross booking volume (GBV) within four years. Currently, GBV is around US$6 billion, and the goal is to reach US$18 billion.
According to the CFO, three factors tend to drive this indicator. The first is the increase in conversions via iFood within the Prosus ecosystem. The expectation is to grow by about 30% per year, unlocking underexplored customer bases.
The second is the natural expansion of the fintech Koin , which is growing 35% per month and will serve as a hub for the "hotel bank". Finally, B2B as a structural engine. Currently, this vertical represents less than 20% of the company's results, and the projection is to reach 50%.
The points of attack will be offline agencies, operators, and partners with low digitization, mainly those located in the interior of Brazil and other Latin American countries. "The offline sector is still very under-digitized. We will be the infrastructure for this segment," says Renan.
The group decided to organize its global operations into regional ecosystems, combining high-frequency (delivery) and high-margin (travel) businesses.
Decolar is no longer evaluated in isolation but is now measured by its ability to accelerate the Prosus ecosystem. And, at the same time, to be accelerated by it.
The initial figures from the integration show how this mechanism can work. According to the travel company's CFO, 7% of Decolar's total revenue in Brazil already comes directly from iFood – and half of that is new revenue.
“Less than 5% of iFood users bought from Decolar. It was a huge asymmetry. Now we are unlocking that,” says Renan.
All 60 million annual active users of iFood already have access to the travel icon within the app, which is, in practice, an instant and highly frequent distribution channel.
Decolar's comparative advantage within the Prosus ecosystem goes beyond audience reach. Technology and artificial intelligence are beginning to create new standards of use and efficiency.
Sofia, the generative travel assistant, is experiencing 35% monthly growth in interactions. The tool already helps with destination recommendations, comparisons, and inspiration, reducing one of the biggest friction points in the industry: the endless tabs open and parallel decision-making processes.
“After acquiring Despegar, we conducted dozens of tests to prove that we can use iFood's traffic and frequency to accelerate business growth,” said Fabricio Bloisi , CEO of Prosus, during the results presentation to investors.
“The results were extremely positive. We found a model to use iFood's 70 million users as a distribution channel for our entire ecosystem,” he added.
Bloisi projected to investors that this number is likely to grow "rapidly and consistently" throughout 2025 and 2026.
