TQ3 Travel Buys U.K.'s Phoenix Travel

TQ3 Travel Solutions has bought Phoenix Travel, one of the U.K.'s top 10 business travel agencies with a volume of nearly $200 million. Phoenix, which has more than 200 employees in 16 offices and implants, handles Deutsche Bank in the United Kingdom in partnership with Sea Gate Travel Group, which handles the bank in the United States. TQ3 already has a U.K. partner in the shape of what formerly was called Britannic Travel. However, Britannic is a franchise operation and lengthy negotiations to purchase it outright have not borne fruit to date.

Regarding the integration of the Britannic and Phoenix operations, TQ3 COO for EMEA and Asia/Pacific Toby Joseph said, "We will confirm the final management structure in the next two weeks." One option for TQ3 could be that it would operate multinational accounts in the United Kingdom through the wholly owned Phoenix business, leaving Britannic to handle U.K.-only small and medium accounts.