Oral History of Online Travel: How Decolar Built an Online Booking Brand Offline
Photo Caption: Alex Todres (L) and Bob Rossato (R), who formerly worked at Decolar.
Skift Take
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Decolar approached local airlines to forge partnerships, the carriers just didn't appreciate what the site was trying to do. But Decolar, which has its struggles today, indeed outlasted many of those airlines.
Skift launched its largest and most ambitious project yet, The Definitive Oral History of Online Travel, on June 1.
In nearly 40,000 words founders, CEOs, other executives and insiders tell a story in their own words about the creation of Internet giants such as Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity, Orbitz, TripAdvisor and more.
Not all of the interviews fit into the big story so we are publishing standalone stories that offer deeper insight into information we collected during the three-month research process.
Argentina-based online travel agency Decolar, which counts Brazil as its largest market, was founded in 1999 at a time when just about all airline or hotel bookings were made in a brick-and-mortar office, on the phone, or at the hotel and airport.
When Decolar started dabbling with selling airline tickets online, there was a lot going on behind the scenes and even in subsequent years it was common for customers to visit Decolar offices to verify that the company really e
