Interview with Mariano Soler, CTO, Mexico.com.mx

Mariano Soler feels Latin America as an online travel marketplace can be segregated considering interesting clues about how differently people behave when they book, varying from city to city.

“We have adapted strategies based on those clues,” says Soler.

“Year after year we see huge changes in the way customers book online, specially how they have learned how to take advantage of last minute deals, the way they have embraced the Internet as a primary source of information, even if they later book offline.”

Ahead of EyeforTravel’s Distribution Latin American and The Caribbean 2006 conference, scheduled to take place in Mexico City this week, Soler shared information about progress made by his company and striking features of Latin America as a travel market in an interview with EyeforTravel.com’s Ritesh Gupta.

Excerpts:

How do you assess progress made by your company in the recent past? What have been the major achievements?

Our company has been growing steadily, especially in small to mid size destinations, and with independent hotels that cannot afford to distribute with larger online travel agencies, we have grown 100 percent each year since 2001, and we are projecting the same growth for 2006.

Even though our most visited sites are mexico.com.mx, buenosaires.com.ar, or acapulco.com.mx, we have five to six smaller destinations that are providing far better results in less crowed markets, where we know the local offer and we know the needs of our customers.

Our major achievment has been articulating a dozen of different sites, acting locally, and thinking also locally. In each city and country we have a customised site, local phone numbers, local experts, and flavour. We even manage special means of payments valid only in those countries, and that has been a complex task.

How do you assess progress made by your website Mexico.com.mx, or network of sites across latinAmerica, such as Buenosaires.com.ar, SantiagodeChile.com from brand building and distribution perspective?

Having more than 12 different sites, where the url is some sort of a brand (such as mexico.com.mx, buenosaires.com.ar, or santiagodechile.com,) has been a downside to build a global brand.

We have an umbrella name that is not well known, and using generic city names has helped us to grab traffic, and people remember our address and return, but is hard to communicate all the names in one.

We are working hard to establish a name that represent our network of sites. From the distribution perspective, we are increasing the number of sites and markets we serve, as well as developing an affiliate programme for other sites to participate.

 

What according to you have been significant developments in Latin America as far as online distribution is concerned?

Latin American Internet users have been switching from dial-up connection to broadband in the last few years very aggressively. That has been helping online distribution, along with the fact that small independent hotels are now familiar with GDS, or online travel agencies. Now, in Argentina, Chile and Mexico, many properties feed rooms, update rates or close allotment online, when just three or four years ago only big players were involved in that kind of procedure.

How is your relationship with suppliers especially hotels changing?

Yes, even though having more technologically smarter suppliers help us to have better stocks of rooms and automate processes, they are also improving their own website strategies to sell direct to consumers, and compete stronger against us.

Profit margins are decreasing and we are focusing our strategy on comparison, reviews and strong destination content that you will not find at the hotel websites. From the consumer perspective we are the destination as our name is “thenameofthecity.com”.

What do you think are the challenges for an organisation like yours from distribution perspective (for Latin America)?

Domestic markets in Latin America still buy most of hotel and tours booking offline and there are many reasons why South Americans mainly research online and book offline. From our perspective the biggest challenge is trust, in the true meaning of the word.

People must trust on the security to pay with credit card (fraud issues), but the biggest fear among buyers is not getting what they have paid for, especially for independent hotels with no so recognised brand, they fear to see a pretty picture and arrive at destination and get something different. Suppliers and online travel agencies must be responsible to avoid distrust of the Internet channel. This is absolutely a bigger problem in Latin America than in the US or other more developed markets.

What according to you have major developments in the online travel business in the last six months or so?

In some cities we are strongly developing comparison tools, and community features, specially reviews and user generated content.

What’s on your agenda this year?

Keep up with geographical expansion and acquisition of good domain names of small to mid size destinations where we can be among the top three sites. We want to cover those destinations chosen by domestic travelers, instead of the classic spots of tourism, where the competition is strong, with the big players serving those markets.