Travel Counsellors, a fast-growing travel company backed by Vitruvian Partners, has acquired Canada’s leading travel agent community, The Travel Agent Next Door (TTAND), creating a transatlantic leader with over 3,900 independent travel entrepreneurs.
The acquisition strengthens the company’s international presence, combining Travel Counsellors’ scalable, AI-powered technology platform with TTAND’s market-leading operations in Canada.
Both businesses share a customer-centric ethos, supporting premium leisure travel while empowering agents to grow.
The merger enables knowledge sharing, technology integration, and operational scale across seven international markets.
This follows Travel Counsellors’ recent acquisitions of Holidaysplease and the Planisto platform. The enlarged group is projected to reach £1.5 billion ($2 billion) in total transaction value (TTV) and £50 millon EBITDA, accelerating its international growth strategy and solidifying its position as a leader in the global travel operator market.
Steve Byrne, CEO of Travel Counsellors, commented: “We are delighted to join forces with Flemming and the team at The Travel Agent Next Door, Canada’s most successful travel agent community. TTAND is a business we have long admired for its strong entrepreneurial culture and leadership, exceptional internal engagement amongst its community of travel business owners, and outstanding reputation for providing first-class customer care. Together, we will continue to build on the outstanding culture and essence of TTAND and drive further success.
“This is a partnership where the combined company will become more than the sum of its parts. Both organisations have been built on strong values that put people, personalisation and entrepreneurial spirit first. TTAND’s established leadership team share our hunger to grow and continue to disrupt the leisure and corporate travel market through highly personal service and a relentless focus on the customer, powered by a continuous investment in market leading technology. I know that both businesses will learn a lot from each other whilst also benefitting from superior scale, clear local market leadership and expertise, and - in time – the benefits of our technology platform driving enhanced personalisation for the benefit of TTANDs agents and customers.
“The deal is an important milestone in our growth strategy as we focus on leveraging our proprietary technology to build a leading global travel platform, combining the very best of the human touch and tech, to deliver enhanced personalisation, care and peace of mind for customers. Canada is one of the world’s largest outbound travel markets and in TTAND we have partnered with one of the most successful travel businesses in that market with significant further headroom for growth in the premium leisure and corporate travel markets. This deal also provides an important gateway for our company into the wider North American market, which represents a significant potential future growth opportunity.
“We closed out our 2024/25 financial year at the end of October with another year of strong profitable growth and record transaction value of £1.1bn. We have our sights firmly set on doubling the size of the business in the coming years underpinned by the relevance and scalability of our model. In a time of accelerated change in the industry, we are confident that companies that can deploy best in breed AI tools, alongside the human touch and personalisation relevant to customers and their preferences, have great opportunities to do well. Our customers want the best advice and travel experiences that are relevant to them, as well as superior, trusted support in case things go wrong. Travel Counsellors’ mission is to embrace the opportunities from AI and offer these to our community of travel experts via our platform, in turn giving customers high levels of confidence and trust in a time of change.”
Flemming Friisdahl, CEO of The Travel Agent Next Door, commented: “I have always looked at Travel Counsellors as a leader when it comes to travel professionals that work remotely and flexibly, and I am very excited to be partnering with them for two very important reasons. Number one is the culture, it aligns very much with the TTAND culture, given it is all about our support team and our agent partners. The second reason is their commitment to being innovative and bringing the most effective technology tools to their community of travel experts. We cannot wait to bring some of the benefits of Travel Counsellors’ sector-leading technology and product to support our team in Canada.” -TradeArabia News Service
