InteleTravel is on “several acquisition missions” but its president quashed rumours the homeworking firm is poised to buy an agency network in the UK.
Speaking on a visit to London, James Ferrara said: “It doesn’t make sense for us to acquire an agent network. We’ve established such a gravitational pull in the marketplace on our own. We’re getting as many agents as we want. That’s not the challenge for us.”
He added he was looking to buy companies that are “additive to our business, not our agent network”, and said this could cover technology or support services, to provide more opportunities for InteleTravel members to sell and earn.
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Ferrara revealed InteleTravel was currently in talks to acquire a meetings and events [Mice] business “to give our agents a new market
to work in”.
He said InteleTravel globally already sold hundreds of corporate bookings for groups of more than 100 travellers, with values as high as £500,000 to £1 million per booking, and 25% of this business was booked by UK members.
“This Mice business already exists in InteleTravel, but we’re not doing anything to support it,” he said.
“So as a result of this acquisition, we’ll be able to train our agents on how to sell meetings and incentive travel and they will receive a certification. We do not expect our agents to run events; that part can be done via this company we’re buying.”
Ferrara said the new focus on meetings and events was a good match for InteleTravel’s agent profile.
He said he was also close to acquiring a “tech player in the UK” that would bring a new product range onto InteleTravel’s platform for search, but would not be drawn on which sector it serves.
“A common complaint from agents is that they have to go to so many places to get the right content. It’s a lot of work for them. So we want to provide more content, more tools and more support for our agents,” he said.
Ferrara stressed that not all enhancements to InteleTravel’s offering had to be via acquisition, pointing to strong commercial tie‑ups, such as with Widgety for cruise content, which had brought “huge benefits” to agents.