BCD Travel has acquired the business travel and meetings and events activities of its long-time Milan-based Italian partner Ventura Spa.
As a result of the purchase, Ventura Spa will operate as a newly-formed company called BCD Travel Italy, which will offer corporate travel, meetings and events and travel consolidation services.
Founded in 1977, Ventura Spa became a BCD partner in 2006. With annual sales of around US$400 million and 380 staff, the new company will maintain its offices in Milan, Florence, Turin, Treviso and Guardiagrele.
The organisation will continue to be led by managing director Davide Rosi, who has been heading up operations in Italy since 2003. He will report to Stewart Harvey, president of EMEA.
Rosi commented: “This acquisition will better equip BCD Travel to support local customers and help them expand their travel programmes at a global level, building upon the excellent reputation Ventura Spa has established in Italy in its partnership with BCD Travel over more than a decade. It will also enable faster, market-relevant enhancements to our solutions and services to the market.”
Ventura Spa is the latest in a series of strategic acquisitions for BCD Travel, including the recent merger of Connex Travel and Rennies Travel in South Africa and the purchase of Adelman Travel Group last year. The TMC also bought a majority stake in Japan’s Hitachi Travel Bureau.
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