Hotelbeds outlines strategy following latest acquisitions
Hotelbeds is ‘taking its time’ with the integration of Tourico and GTA, the two companies it bought earlier this year.
Speaking to TravelMole this week, director of global sales Sam Turner said it wanted to make sure it didn’t ‘rush decisions to make bad decisions’.
"We’re consciously not making decisions too quickly," he said.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look across all the businesses at the sales functions, IT, marketing, and to preserve the best bits of each company. It will take some months still to unveil what the future will look like."
He said while Tourico was now officially part of Hotelbeds, the completion of the GTA deal was still subject to regulatory approval, which makes the overall integration more complicated.
"We can’t make decisions about Tourico without thinking about GTA as well, but the timeline is not in our hands, it’s in hands of the regulator," he said.
"We expect completion to be possibly in the final quarter of this calendar year, but it might be in the first quarter of next year."
The two acquisitions were part of a strategy of ‘organic and non-organic growth’ by Hotelbeds’ new owners who were looking to gain scale quickly.
The Palma-based company was previously part of TUI, but in September 2016 Hotelbeds became independent under the ownership of Cinven and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).
In February it announced the purchase of US-based Tourico and in April it acquired B2B travel supplier GTA from Swiss travel group Kuoni.
Hotelbeds said the GTA deal would boost its presence in the fast growing Asia-Pacific and Middle East markets.
"All three companies are definitely global but they each have their own geographical strength," said Turner.
"We now tick the boxes in terms of having a proper global hotels coverage and we see ourselves in a very strong position in all of the major locations. We don’t see that we have a massive material gap."
But he said future acquisitions could not be ruled out.
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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