Travel merger gives Swedes more market share
By : Robert Wylot
Local travel company Itaka is to merge with Swedish tour operator Ving following a buyout by Ving's parent company Scandinavian Leisure Group (SLG) last week.
Itaka President Mariusz Janczuk will become managing director of the still unnamed company, which will be based in Opole, according to Katarzyna Miler-Matuszewska, Ving's spokeswoman.
She said SLG's acquisition of Itaka will help complement Ving's range of holiday offers. "Ving is focused on charter travel, while Itaka specializes in bus holidays, bus round trips and ski holidays," she said.
Industry operators said the buyout was an attempt by the Swedish company to grab a larger market share after years of flat sales. "Ving for the last three years has been unsuccessfully trying to build up a sales network in Poland, so they finally decided to buy Itaka because it has a good reputation and a big network," said Andrzej Kalinski, director of Aladin Group travel operator. Ving has 38 outlets and cooperation agreements with 100 agents, while Itaka has six shops and agreements with 500 agents.
The move is the first official merger of two firms from the top outbound tour operators in Poland and follows a pattern of global consolidation in the travel market.
The biggest industry alliance to date in Poland is between TUI Polska and Scan Holiday Travel (http://www.scanholiday.com.pl), both of which are operated by Germany's Preussag, one of the biggest global travel concerns. The German company owns the TUI Group and controls Scan Holiday Travel through the U.K.-based Thomson Travel Group, which Preussag bought last year.
Despite an official insistence that the companies are two separate entities, TUI Polska and Scan Holiday pursue a coordinated strategy under separate brands, according to an industry source, who wished to remain anonymous. "If you compare their catalogs, you'll see it's one company," the source said. "If you want to name the biggest operator in Poland, it will be TUI Polska and Scan Holiday Travel (together), and not the merged Itaka and Ving."
Most top Polish travel operators also unanimously named Scan Holiday Travel and TUI Polska (together) as the country's industry leader.
"The combined TUI Polska and Scan Holiday Travel is definitely the biggest outbound operator in Poland," said Krzysztof Piatek, president of Neckermann Polska, another top-six firm.
Nevertheless, Scan Holiday Travel insists it has no intention of any consolidation on the Polish market for the foreseeable future. "There will be no merger between TUI Polska and Scan Holiday, nor will we buy another Polish company," said Joanna Sosnowska, Scan Holiday's marketing director.
Sosnowska said her firm's charter market share is about 30%. "Scan Holiday Travel is the biggest," she said. "Even Ving and Itaka's merger doesn't pose a threat to us."
Another Polish tour operator, the state-owned giant Orbis Travel, is also looking for an investor to save its dramatically shrinking market share, but the privatization issue will have to wait until after the general elections in September, industry sources said.
Smaller operators in Poland are also looking to big foreign investors for an injection of vital capital. "All Polish operators want to be taken over because they lack cash they have know-how and a network, but that's all," Kalinski said.
However, the big four players Orbis Travel, Neckermann, TUI Polska/Scan Holiday Travel and the merged Ving/Itaka have ruled out any further takeovers. "We don't plan to grow via acquisitions in Poland," said Neckermann's Piatek. "We focus on mass-charter travel, and are not interested in buying niche Polish firms."
Except for Neckermann Polska and Orbis Travel, none of the top six companies chose to reveal their financial results or the number of customers they had on their books.
