Flight Centre NZ move

FLIGHT Centre Travel Group (FCTG) has bolstered its New Zealand presence with the acquisition of two local companies, the leisure-focussed Travel Managers Group and corporate independent Executive Travel Group.

Announced late yesterday, FCTG said the purchases strengthened its position as one of NZ’s largest corporate travel management companies and gave it a strong broker and franchise network.

Travel Managers Group (TMG) - unrelated to Australia’s TravelManagers home-based network - offers systems and support services to over 180 individual travel brokers, as well as a 22-store franchise network with 12 TravelSmart shops and 10 unbranded stores.

Executive Travel Group (ETG) is NZ’s largest independent corporate travel management company, established in 1978.

Flight Centre md Graham Turner said NZ was now the company’s fifth largest business globally by sales, behind Australia, the USA, the UK and Canada.

“Executive Travel and Travel Managers are profitable businesses, generating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in excess of NZ$3 million annually, with solid growth trajectories and good track records of success,” he said.

“With their addition, Flight Centre New Zealand will go close to becoming a $NZ1.5 billion-per- year sales company during the 2018 fiscal year.

Turner said ETG would enhance “our already strong corporate travel offering in NZ” and give additional scale and expertise.

He said TMG would provide new business models and leisure revenue streams.