BCD Holdings is taking its Vayama online travel agency and uniting it with four other OTAs with positions in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France and Singapore and will operate them as one unit within BCD.
"The merger of these companies results in one strong and international online travel company," says Joop Drechsel, BCD's CEO. "Our common goal is to strengthen our current representation in the various countries, as well as expanding our activities in the remaining parts of Europe and Asia."
The companies involved include CheapTickets.nl/de, Vliegwinkel.nl, Budgetair.nl, Flugladen.de and Vayama.com.
BCD Holdings carried out the mergers with investments from ING Corporate Investments, Bluefield Investments and Beins Travel Group, which owns CheapTickets. (CheapTickets.nl and CheapTickets.de are not related to CheapTickets.com, which is owned by Orbitz Worldwide.)
CheapTickets and Vliegwinkel operate in the Netherlands and Germany; Vayama does business in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore; Flugladen is a German OTA; and BudgetAir has expanded from the Netherlands into Belgium, France and the U.K.
The combined companies have 350 employees in offices in the Netherlands, Germany, India and the U.S., with annual revenue of $750 million.
ING Investments is a minority shareholder in the new business.
In addition to the five OTAs, BCD Holdings' portfolio also includes BCD Travel, Airtrade, TRX and several other companies.