King World Travel is to form part of a new portfolio of UK distribution businesses headed by former MyTravel chief executive Duncan Wilson.
The Scottish agency chain, based in Ayr, has been bought by resort development company Minoan Group for £410,000. Under the deal, co-founder Tom King will leave the business.
Wilson is in talks with several other businesses as part of a ‘buy and build’ strategy to make an acquisition every three months.
The business will include travel agencies, online companies and bed banks with strong repeat customer bases, and have a cumulative turnover of £100 million this year.
“We’d expect to be able to add on a similar number of businesses over the next few years. King World Travel is a small first step on the road,” said managing director Wilson, who quit MyTravel in 2003.
The distribution business will operate separately to the resort business but will sell holidays at a resort planned in Crete. The group owns a 240-hectare plot of land on the island. It is going through a fast-track planning process for a 7,000-bed eco-friendly resort of five luxury hotels, three golf courses, a marina and 1,000 villas. Kempinski and Six Senses Resorts & Spas have signed up to be in the resort.
Wilson said the new group would plug a gap as there was a “dearth of opportunity” for independent companies to sell product not owned by the big two.
He stressed there were no plans to change the existing models or names of UK businesses acquired.