The Travel Company, the U.K. travel management company acquired last week by BCD Holdings, today announced that it has acquired the Synergi travel management network and has rebranded it the TTC Global Network. The acquisition follows a flurry of changes involving The Travel Company and its new parent, BCD Holdings, which resulted from BCD's split last week from Hogg Robinson
(BTNonline, Jan. 3).
The move is entirely The Travel Company's acquisition and TTC Global will remain a separate entity from WorldTravel Affiliates. Mary Ellen George, executive vice president of sales and marketing at WorldTravel, described the move as an effort "to fill in our map."
"This gives the new company more reach, and gives Synergi more clout. It doesn't mean that we won't do partnerships or acquisitions within that network," she said. "There are some partners that we will talk about acquiring. As part of our new company, we are now looking at that and evaluating these decisions and saying, 'Does it make sense for us to do a full acquisition of these partners?' "
Synergi president Greg O'Neil will remain president and CEO of TTC Global. The new company will remain a consortium with longtime Synergi member The Travel Company is its majority shareholder. Garber Travel will remain the U.S. partner in the Synergi network.
"All of this is going to take a few months to sort out," George admitted. "We're hoping to have a lot of this established in March, so that when we close our transaction with TUI at the end of the first quarter, you're going to have a clear picture of how these networks are going to shake out."