The online travel agency Destinia is far from a startup. Founded in Madrid by the Egyptian Amuda Goueli and the Australian Ian Webber, with more than 20 years of history and clients in 95 countries, the Spanish company suffers the ups and downs typical of the tourism industry (crisis, pandemic and, now, a boom in travelers all over the world), but it survives and is strengthened. In 2023 they recorded record turnover, doubling in size compared to 2019, up to 237 million euros. They have had two years of growth above 20%.
“We have been lucky. We have startup ratios being a mature company,” assumes Ricardo Fernández, CEO of Destinia. The manager affirms that “before the pandemic we grew at very small rates, between 2% and 3%, but after the pandemic, certain decisions we have made have turned out very well and this has meant that we are experiencing growth that is a “a little inappropriate to our moment of life.”
Maite Gutierrez
In fact, the company’s goal for this year is to “achieve record turnover” for the second year, he says. “The only reasonable thing I can say is that I have no idea how the year is going to end, but my goal is for it to be the best in our history. The first four months of this year have already been the best quarter in our history, we have grown 29% above the first four months of 2023, and our goal was to grow 10%, reaching 250 million euros in sales.” , he assures.
One of the main keys to this increase is that the world tourism market is growing wildly, without a doubt. “There are regions that have not yet recovered pre-pandemic tourism levels. There is still room to grow,” says the manager.
Spain is its first market, with 33% of sales, followed by France, Portugal and, outside Europe, the USA.
Destinia also works a lot on customer loyalty, “generating benefits per purchase that are redeemed in subsequent transactions,” as well as giving a lot of added value to the travel products they design. “In the last year, 30% of our clients had already purchased from us at some point in the last 12 months,” highlighted the advisor.
On the other hand, less dependence on the Spanish market and greater internationalization are driving the online agency’s business. “In 2019, Spain was 61% of our sales and now it is 33%, it has grown a little in recent months compared to the 31% it represented in 2023,” explains Fernández. It continues to be its main market, far from the 10% represented by France or Portugal, its next most important markets. Outside Europe, its biggest business comes from the US, Mexico and Brazil.
Maite Gutierrez
To promote this trade, they have just opened an office in Mexico City, which will also have an agent in Cancun. “It is important to adapt the product, customer service and payment methods to the markets you are targeting. They are very important barriers when operating there,” says the counselor.
Along with the opening of Mexico, Destinia wants to finally open its office in Florida (USA), a project that began in 2022 but that “was not well calculated then”, so it had to be backtracked. They hope to open before summer. The agency, which has 240 workers, has offices in Madrid, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Switzerland, Cairo and Brazil.
The company does not rule out operations to grow. “We are always looking for opportunities, this is a very innovative market, but it is complicated because we do not want to leverage ourselves to face them,” Fernández details. Another thing is bringing in investors or going public, which the director sees as “very complicated.”
