You are Gonzalo Carranza, 49, CEO of Viajes Altamar, a Peruvian travel agency with 34 high-street branches. You have run it for nine years. The board meets in 90 days and wants one thing from you: the shape of the pivot.
The situation
Viajes Altamar opened its first office in Lima in 1991. For two decades it was simply how Peruvians booked travel: a person behind a desk who knew which airline to trust, which Cusco operator would not cancel at the last minute, how to rescue a missed connection in Bogotá at midnight. Thirty-four branches across Lima, Arequipa, Trujillo, Cusco and Piura. 280 employees. The model was simple — airlines and hotels paid commission, and customers paid a service fee.
That model has been coming apart for fifteen years. Airlines cut agency commissions to near zero. Online travel agencies — Despegar, Booking — took the simple bookings. Net revenue has fallen from S/ 94M to S/ 61M in five years; last year Altamar barely broke even. And now the newest threat is aimed at the one thing the company still sells — advice. More customers walk in each month having already planned the entire trip with an AI assistant, wanting only someone to press "confirm".