Skift Take
Thomas Cook India’s acquisition of Kuoni’s network of destination management companies is a story of how an Indian company becomes a global player overnight. There are also deep wounds about how a global company like Kuoni could end up being broken, literally, to pieces.
Editor's Note: Skift launched a new series, Gateway, as we broaden our news coverage geographically with first-hand, original stories from correspondents embedded in cities around the world.
We are featuring regular reports several times per month from Beijing, Singapore, and Cape Town, and look for us to add other cities soon. Gateway Singapore, for example, signifies that the reporter is writing from that city although her coverage of the business of travel will meander to other locales in the region. Read about the series here, and check out all the stories in the series here.
Overnight, in one fell swoop, Thomas Cook India has become a multinational player with a global network of destination management companies, including Allied TPro U.S., Asian Trails, Australian Tours Management, Desert Adventures/Gulf Dunes Middle East and Private Safaris Africa.
Swedish private equity group EQT which now owns Kuoni, is handing this platter to Thomas Cook India Group, completing the end of travel-service provider Kuoni as a mighty business-to-business travel player. The other main piece, GTA, is going to Hotelbeds Group as announced a few weeks ago.
Destination management companies serve as tour operators for meetings, and some also have leisure departments.
EQT still owns VFS Global, the highly lucrative visa and passport facilitation service, which sources say was why EQT bought Kuoni in 2016.
With its acquisition of Kuoni’s destination management company network, “Thomas Cook India is finally a multinational company, given we now have a global footprint,” said its chairman and managing director Madhavan Menon in a phone interview.
Nothing To Do With Thomas Cook UK
Thomas Cook India has nothing to do with Thomas Cook UK. Fairfax Financial Holdings, based in Canada, owns Thomas Cook India. Indian billionnaire Prem Watsa founded Fairfax in 1985 and serves as chairma
