Cendant Corporation has today announced the acquisition of leading UK long-haul airfare and ground product consolidator, Travel 2 and Travel 4, known collectively as Travel 2/Travel 4, to add to its global leisure portfolio. Specialising in long haul travel to Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific, the Far East, Southern Africa, the Americas and Round-the-World, exclusively through the travel agency channel, the Travel 2/Travel 4 brands carry over 220,000 clients per year, generating revenues in excess of £170 million. 

 
Travel 2/Travel 4 will form part of Cendant’s Travel Distribution Services division, and the acquisition is seen as the next step in Cendant’s strategy of expanding and growing its travel businesses in Europe, strengthening its position within the travel agency supply chain. More importantly, it continues Cendant’s evolution into a multi-channel aggregator of the richest travel inventory, making the flights, hotels and other products from the Travel 2/Travel 4 brands available to a much broader customer base through its many distribution channels, including Galileo.

 
Said Gordon Wilson, Managing Director of International Markets for Cendant’s Travel Distribution Services division: “Our aim in Europe is to create a business that adds value to the travel industry and Travel 2/Travel 4 hold a respected position within this industry. We’re very excited at the prospect of welcoming Travel 2/Travel 4 into the Cendant family and working with them to take the business to the next stage in its growth plan.”

 
Adds Wilson, “By combining the strengths of the businesses we have in Europe with acquisitions such as Travel 2/Travel 4, we are making a wealth of very rich content available to travel agencies through a choice of distribution channels, effectively becoming an ‘empowerer of the travel trade’.”

 
As part of the agreement, Cendant Travel Distribution Services will use some of the technology available in its other subsidiaries, such as Galileo and Travelwire, to significantly enhance the offerings made by Travel 2/Travel 4 to the retail travel trade and reduce the costs of distribution to the benefit of the agent and travel suppliers alike.

 
“Over the last 21 years, we have built an enormously successful business of which we’re incredibly proud,” said Stuart Harvey, Joint Managing Director of Travel 2/Travel 4. “The provision of travel services has changed dramatically in recent years. This has meant that the service we provide to our travel agency customers has had to evolve and we are committed to ensuring that this happens. By becoming part of Cendant, we will be much better placed to fulfil our ambitions for Travel 2/Travel 4.

 
Added Harvey, “We’re all very excited by the opportunities that this will create for Travel 2/Travel 4 and for our team.”

 
Travel 2/Travel 4 will operate as a separate business unit within Cendant’s Travel Distribution Services division. Travel 2/Travel 4’s current management team, led by Stuart Harvey and Graham Moss, will maintain their fierce commitment to the travel trade, including the high level of personal service required for tailor-made and complex leisure itineraries.

 
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but are not material to Cendant. The acquisition is not expected to have a material impact on future Company earnings. This transaction reflects Cendant’s previously announced strategy of identifying ‘tuck in’ acquisitions that will deliver long- term organic growth.

 
 
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