Independent tour operator group Travelopia has revealed a two-year investment plan in technology and is actively on the acquisition trail following news it is to sell its education division.
The group announced on Monday that it would be selling its 10 education brands in the spring to focus on its remaining 42 experiential tour operator businesses, which include Hayes & Jarvis, Citalia, Jetsave and Sunsail.
Chief executive Will Waggott said the sale would free up money to invest in front-end selling systems, customer relationship management systems, websites and apps across its brands and making the brands more user-friendly for trade and consumers.
The group has already started improving the brands’ selling systems, he said, but investment in technology is likely to take two years to roll out across the portfolio and will ultimately mean the brands share similar technology systems.
He said: “We are going to replace everything. We are going to build it (new system) once in one of the brands rather than each building their own technology stack.”
Waggott said the group was also be looking to acquire other brands that would fit with its specialist, experiential collection.
“We have been looking of the last six to seven months and when something right comes along we’ll look at it but there is nothing imminent,” he added.
Waggott is hopeful the education division will be sold this summer to either a private equity group or a trade buyer but said the group was “not in a terrible rush”. He would not reveal how much the group hoped to sell the brands for.
He said: “I think there will be a lot of interest but I have no idea how much we’ll get for it. It’ll be on sale in the next month or so; we are in the middle of the preparation phase; doing teasers and sale packs.
“They are really good businesses. I would personally love to keep them but strategically they don’t fit with the experiential travel group.”
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