Expotel acquires specialist hotel booking agency
Expotel has acquired Buckinghamshire-based specialist hotel booking agency Russell Hotel Reservations.
Ian Burnley, Expotel’s CEO, said: “The Russell Hotel Reservations agency has some excellent long-term customer relationships and fits our strategic vision to develop our hotel, travel, conference and event management services for the corporate and public sector markets.”
The move comes after Expotel lost the business travel contract of the Ministry of Defence to HRG (Hogg Robinson Group).
Burnley said: “This was obviously disappointing news as we have serviced the MoD hotel reservations very successfully over a long period but, we expect that this loss, while significant, will be compensated by gains in other areas over the coming months.”
He said Expotel has achieved over 10% growth in turnover in the first half of its financial year and expects further growth in the second half of this year.
“I am very pleased with the progress we have made in recent months, during which time we have secured new business wins worth approximately £30million in annual contract value,” he said.
“In recent months we have re-emphasised our commitment to providing an integrated business travel offering and this has been well received by existing and prospective customers.”
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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