G Adventures has acquired small group youth travel specialist TruTravels.
The business, which is based in Surrey, and was co-founded in 2012 by entrepreneurs Joe Fallon and Mark Pope who will continue to run the company as partners and minority shareholders.
G Adventures’ founder, Bruce Poon Tip, said TruTravels will keep its brand identity and style of trip.
“Earlier this year, I realised we were missing a beat with a new, grassroots style of small group travel that was emerging for young people,” he said. “When I started digging deeper into what TruTravels does, I discovered that while their ethos is closely aligned to ours, the way they communicate, and how they travel, is so different to G Adventures that we couldn’t compete.
“For this reason, we don’t want to change what TruTravels does. Joe and Mark are doing an incredible job in this space with this new style of fun-focussed travel which is rooted in meeting new people and driven by social media influences. Our aim is to give them a boost so they can do more of what they already do so well, and we welcome them to the G Adventures family of brands as a complementary business.”
Fallon said: “While there are clear differences in the style of trips TruTravels runs, and the travellers we attract, the similarities we have with G Adventures are how we knew they were the right partners for us. Both brands’ sales are dominated by travel agency sales and both attract travellers from a number of different countries.
TruTravels employs 25 office staff and 40 tour guides in Asia with plans to expand its sales team as their agency distribution network grows.
The TruTravels deal is the latest acquisition to be made by G Adventures, which also acquired British brands Travelsphere, Just You, Swan Hellenic and Page & Moy in January 2017.