Consolidation in the tours and activities sector, with Japanese provider Veltra snapping up European player City Discovery this week.
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the pair confirmed that the City Discovery brand will remain operational and there will be no immediate changes to the management line-up or head-count.
Tokyo-based Veltra, a well-known online service in the AsiaPacific region, says the acquisition will “reinforce its leading position” in the B2C and B2B wings of the tours and activities sector.
In particular, Veltra notes combining its technology with City Discovery’s existing global operations and customer service expertise.
In a statement, Veltra says:
“By joining their forces in the direction of the online travel agency, travel agency and [other] travel companies, Veltra and City Discovery are addressing the most important part of the tours and activities ecosystem, which is technology – reservations, inventory and connectivity.”
Both companies have been able to view the current interest and shenanigans in the tours and activities sector from a position of relative comfort, having been in existence for over a decade – City Discovery was founded in 2003, Veltra in 1991.
But the acquisition of Viator by TripAdvisor for £200 million in July 2014 and both Zozi andGetYourGuide‘s trousering of huge sums of capital ($50 million to GYG in October 2015, Zozi with $30 million in July of the same year) has seen a string of newbies emerge, seemingly eager to try and capitalise on the multi-billion dollar marketplace.
Veltra claims to have deals with 3,000 companies within its product supply chain, covering 109 countries and 303 cities, with 900,000 registered customers.
France-based City Discovery boasts 9,000 activities, tours and airport transfers.
The pair also talked up the October 2015 agreement between City Discovery and Amadeus to push content to travel agency desktops.
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