Tui Travel and Intrepid Travel’s new joint venture will be surprisingly “painless” and drive synergies through system integrations not redundancies, according to chief executive Darrell Wade.
Tui and Intrepid’s adventure companies will continue to operate as separate businesses under the umbrella of the newly-formed PEAK Adventure Group, which will not be used as a consumer brand.
It is targeting £10 million in annual synergies. The group of more than 20 businesses will have a combined revenue of £230 million and carry 340,000 passengers to all seven continents.
Wade said: “It’s a painless integration. There will not be any redundancies.”
As an example, Intrepid’s recently developed IT system used for reservations as well as financial management and human resources, will be rolled out across the group over the next 18 months.
“That alone will be a substantial saving in IT costs,” added Wade. The businesses will be kept separate and no location changes are planned.
John Wimbleton, who will sit on the board of PEAK Adventure Travel, said some companies had been guilty of swallowing up newly acquired businesses.
He added: “What we have done very successfully over the last few yeas within Tui is kept the integrity of the businesses.”
Wimbleton stressed the strategic venture was focused on growth. “It’s about using our scale to grow in markets and products we are not in. It’s very much about expanding the marketplace and we want to play a substantial part of that.”
The venture is likely to include Tui’s operators tapping into Intrepid’s ground handling companies in destinations and Intrepid selling destinations featured by Tui.