Flagship Group, a portfolio of tours and activities brands including WalksDevour, Amigo Tours and Askos, has been unveiled by Walks founder Stephen Oddo.
Flagship, which is backed by investment firm Shamrock Capital, has acquired the three brands and plans to add more companies to the portfolio as it seeks to become a global platform for day tours.
Oddo takes on the role of CEO of Flagship Group while Charaf El Mansouri, who founded Dharma, is managing partner. Dharma, a startup focused on trips hosted by inspiring people and brands, has been wound down.
Travel industry veterans Rod Cuthbert, founder and former CEO of Viator and Richard Prosser, former CEO of TUI Travel’s Specialist Holidays Division, have joined the board.
Oddo sold Walks to Hornblower (now City Experiences) in 2021 but acquired it back recently alongside the other brands. El Mansouri said the pair decided to form the company to address fragmentation in the growing tours and activities segment.
“The fragmentation is global and there's an opportunity with this kind of first generation of entrepreneurs that built this market to really consolidate, for the first time, a global player on the supply side of day tours,” he said.
Flagship will continue to focus on founder-led day tour suppliers for any further acquisitions including specialists in walking and culinary experiences in different geographies.
The company is not looking to acquire travel technology companies or online travel agencies and will lean into the distribution channels which already work for the individual brands.
“We have a conviction and a position around a few categories that we think can, in and of themselves, be quite scalable business units. And then from a geo perspective, big focus on Europe, obviously, but then, opportunistic globally. What matters to us is really the quality of the operator,” El Mansouri said.
He declined to put a value on Shamrock’s backing but said it supported the ambition to create a global platform.
“We're not looking at large hop-on, hop-off conglomerates. And there's only so much at the scaled end of this industry. Once you kind of start slicing out what's available, there's fewer and fewer that kind of meet those criteria,” Oddo said.
He added that the opportunity not only lies in acquisition but in expanding the existing businesses. Oddo also said that Flagship wants to help operators by removing some of the burden around human resources, legal, tax and finance.
Both he and El Mansouri said they did not see any immediate competitors for Flagship in the market.
"We're not fighting over deals, the pipeline is healthy and the idea is can we build the right relationships? Can we build real authentic relationships with founders? Can we build a post-acquisition integration plan that actually honours their legacy, keeps the DNA of the businesses alive?" El Mansouri said.
Mike LaSalle, co-president and partner at Shamrock said Flagship combines "great founders, beloved brands and a large global market that is still early in its evolution.”