A few months ago, Brazilian metasearch company Mundi installed a new CEO, Ana Araujo.
It was one of many changes lately at Mundi, which claims to be the most-visited travel metasearch website in Brazil -- receiving about 3 million queries a month, on average.
Mundi's backstory
In 2008, Mundi was founded in Rio de Janeiro by three entrepreneurs who had already had success in other Internet companies. Those partners now run investment firm Mosaico Internet, which owns a few digital properties.
In recent years, the founders' goal has been to expand Mundi throughout Latin America. So they partnered with investment firm Groupo Globo.
The partnership worked, at first. The pace of growth in user adoption was fairly strong.
Yet this past winter, the founders shifted course. They bought out Global’s shares. They also adjusted Mundi’s objectives, re-focusing the company to target Brazil alone. Mundi laid off many employees, most of whom had been focused on international growth, says an executive.
In February, Mundi turned profitable on its mix of cost-per-click and cost-per-action advertising. It says it has remained profitable since.
All of the above-mentioned changes at Mundi have coincided with the rise of competition.
Until about a year ago, Mundi had no metasearch rivals. Then international giants Kayak and Skyscanner arrived and local rival Voopter popped up.
A few months ago, the company switched to displaying estimated taxes along with fares. It is the only local travel player in Brazil that displays the total price -- a feature that isn't fully standard at local online travel agencies (OTAs). (Foreign-based metasearch giants have provided total price for some time.)
Today Mundi has 25 employees. It is beginning to hire again in Rio.
Mundi recently hired Araujo as its new chief.
This month Araujo gave Tnooz her first interview with an English-language travel publication. (The following Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
What’s the market scenario in Brazil?
Brazil is growing fast in terms of Web mobile and broadband penetration. But Brazilian companies are still working on creating an e-commerce culture, making people comfortable with purchasing online.
So Mundi previously invested heavily in branding to become a household name. Now we know we have to first help Brazilians develop an understanding of the difference between an OTA and a metasearch tool.
What’s your main focus for the next year?
First of all, I want us to be growing profitably, not just growing.
I also want us to invest in the user experience and product development side. We’re now investing about 30% of the company’s margin in product development. We will be looking to hire experts in product and market development, A/B testing, user experience, and so forth.
I aim for us to launch the first in a series of new products before the end of the year. These products will help consolidate our position in the metasearch category.
I also want to create partnerships with other companies to develop our hotel metasearch.
Speaking of hotels, there are heftier commissions in hotels than flights. What are you doing to build your hotel inventory?
The Brazilian market doesn’t have as many chains as the North American market.
When Booking.com came here, they did very good, smart work. They hired local people, they invested well in marketing. Unlike other international companies, they understood that Brazil has a very fragmented market.
We understand that, too.
But what's more, Mundi also stands out in that we can sensitively bring inventory online that others can’t efficiently. For example, we can be a technology provider and digital marketing solution to the owners of remote diving resorts.
Some of those owners think digital marketing is having an email account. They don't know how far they can go, and we can show them.
We can build a technology supply chain that doesn’t invade or hurt the charm of staying in, say, a fisherman’s hut in a island. We can bring remote and independent properties online without ruining the magic of those places.
Can Mundi compete against foreign metasearch giants?
Kayak and Skyscanner and Trivago have recently arrived, and their marketing spend will help educate the market, just as ours does. There’s so much space for every company in Brazil right now.
Still, we have a home advantage. Those companies don’t quite understand the culture in Brazil.
We also have deeper relationships with local suppliers, having had a six-year head start. We have solid commercial agreements with many local airlines like Azul, TAM, Gol, Avianca and with many local OTAs.
What’s your strategy for acquiring customers?
We work a lot with performance marketing, SEM, SEO, affiliates, social.
But we’re not investing in mass media. Name recognition isn’t as important as explaining the category and boosting user adoption so that users can do the word-of-mouth work for us.
We just hired Ketchum PR to help craft awareness. not just among consumers but also among suppliers.
Is social an important element of your outreach goals?
Yes, Brazilians love social media. We’re still testing the positioning of this communication. We want to create engagement, not just be a utility. We are working on ways of making trip-planning a more fun experience.
What about mobile?
We are rethinking our mobile strategies. We already have an app for iOS that is not where I want it to be in usefulness and style.
Our team is also looking beyond pure metasearch utility as an app function. We’re working on new apps for iOS and Android.
Is Mundi only targeting consumers, or is it also thinking of corporate travel?
We’re only talking consumer products now, though we are interested in the potential of B2B solutions.
Would Mundi eventually market to other Lusophone countries, like Portugal?
In the future, I think the Latin America market is where we’re going back to. But we have homework to do first. I don't think overseas countries are in the cards anytime soon.
What experience do you bring to the role?
In 2013 I co-founded a user-generated content site with a twist, called Teckler. Before that, I was the head of business development at Match.com's Latin America division, and I worked with Coca-Cola on its marketing in Brazil during the 2010 World Cup.
Will you be at the PhoCusWright Conference in LA this November?
Yes, I’m looking forward to it.
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