LatAm List – Online travel agency, TripAdvisor, recently announced that its restaurant reservation subsidiary, TheFork (La Fourchette in Europe), acquired Latin American competitor, Restorando. Restorando currently has 4.5 million annual users and covers around 5% of the Latin American reservation market.
TheFork plans to use this acquisition to expand into the Latin American market, adding 3,500 restaurants across 18 cities, including in Brazil, where they already have operations. TripAdvisor also already has an active partnership with Restorando listing restaurants on the platform.
TheFork’s first goal will be to grow Restorando’s marketshare to upward of 40% of the region’s reservable restaurants.
“To build up the marketplace, you need more restaurants,” said Bertrand Jelensperger, senior vice president of TripAdvisor Restaurants, and founder of TheFork. “Both [TripAdvisor and TheFork] will also provide know-how in terms of sales, and go-to-market strategy,” he said.
Restorando will continue to operate under its previous branding for the foreseeable future, but will eventually transition to TheFork’s platform.
TripAdvisor began to expand into the restaurant reservation business in 2015 with their acquisition of TheFork. They have since seen non-hotel earnings jump to US$8M within the past year and are beginning to invest more heavily in this sector of the business.
Read more in Skrift.