NB: This is guest post by Daniele Beccari, vice president at Isango and a technology consultant.
Despite the presence of Expedia in most European countries, the European OTA space is still very fragmented with many local players and mid size groups.
Most are in the the Euro 500 million to 1 billion turnover range.
But a wave of consolidation seems to be driven this year by French private equity house AXA.
Try connecting the dots here:
- In May 2010, AXA acquires a 58% majority stake in GoVoyages (turnover Euro 1.1 billion).
- In September 2010, AXA take a minority 6% stake in Italian group Bravofly (turnover Euro 180 million), owner of Viaggiare.it and Bravofly national brands.
- Go Voyages announces interest in acquiring Opodo (turnover Euro 1.3 billion, valuation Euro 300 million) with discussions to apparently start in October 2010.
- The other large southern European OTA, eDreams (turnover Euro 1 billion+) was acquired in July 2010 by equity house Permira for Euro 300 million. eDreams is also talked of as candidate buyer for Opodo.
So at a pan-European scale, this would actually leave us with the following:
- Expedia with the Expedia sites.
- Orbitz with Ebookers sites.
- Travelocity with Lastminute.com sites;
- TUI
- ThomasCook
- A number of mid-size Scandinavian sites like Travelstart, Travelpartner, Travellink, Seat24.
Food for thought...
NB: This is guest post by Daniele Beccari, vice president at Isango and a technology consultant.