Forced by circumstances, the large travel agencies in Spain have entered into a merger dance after the pandemic hit and the flight of customers to the online channel. Of the main companies dedicated to this business before 2019, only Nautalia and Carrefour resist without major corporate movements around them. Of the rest, all participate in some concentration process or are likely to do so.
Behind the operations are the efforts of the large groups to win the recovery battle, take advantage of digital tools and integrate with tourism partners, especially hoteliers such as Iberostar or Barceló. The sector is highly fragmented and companies often battle for their survival. Before Covid-19 there were some 9,000 travel agencies in Spain and, more than two years later, the INE still does not offer a census of survivors.
Small and medium-sized companies are concerned that this concentration will give even greater strength to large ones, where online agencies such as Booking or Edreams already dominate, indicate sources in the sector.
The latest concentration movement affects an agency profile that up to now has managed to better resist the crisis due to its links to large distribution groups. The Majorcan Iberostar hotel group, from the Fluxá family, has just acquired 100% of Viajes Eroski through its subsidiary W2M. Iberostar is one of the big ones, with decades of experience in these agencies since it took over Viajes Iberia, and now it will add another 145 offices.
W2M, which has also just bought Grupo Azul Marino, responds with this purchase to other recent moves. The most striking is the one that has starred three bands Soltour, Logitravel and El Corte Inglés, which describes very well the mood in this business.
Soltour, founded by the late Murcian businessman Pablo Piñero, joined forces at the end of 2020 with Logitravel, an agency with technological potential born from a computer project for Iberostar. The alliance would allow the creation of a company called Soltour Travel Partners that would integrate the nearly 10,000 partners with whom Soltour works throughout Spain with the technological potential of Logitravel's online tour operator, Smytravel.
The project fell apart in 2021, when Logitravel announced a merger with Viajes El Corte Inglés. The reply has just been given by Soltour, announcing another alliance in parallel with Guest Incoming in which, once again, the ambition to create a new leader in the sector is repeated.
Last month, the second largest hotel group in Spain, Barceló, took over 100% of the group resulting from the merger between Ávoris and Globalia. This new group has been rescued by Sepi, which injected 320 million euros from its fund to assist strategic companies in difficulties due to covid.
Barceló already owns Ávoris and what he has just done is buy Globalia's share in the merged company. Globalia is owned by the Hidalgo family, owner of the airline Air Europa, which was also rescued by Sepi with 475 million and which is in the process of selling to Iberia.
All this game of mergers can be completed by another of the major operators in the sector, Hotelbeds, which was bought six years ago by the venture capital fund Cinven and which, due to the rhythms and investment strategy of its owner, is called to participate in big operations. Acquired for more than 1,100 million euros, Hotelbeds has received injections of Cinven in the worst moments of the pandemic to keep going. Globalia has sold its part in the group formed with Ávoris while the view is set on Hotelbeds.
