MIAMI -- Far & Wide Travel Corp. acquired African Travel, the
Glendale, Calif.-based tour operator founded by David Herbert.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Herbert, the outgoing chairman of the U.S. Tour Operators
Association, will head Far & Wide's new Africa division. He
also is a "substantial" shareholder in Far & Wide, according to
the company, which was founded in March by a group led by Phil
Bakes, the former president of Eastern and Continental
airlines.
"I'm excited about taking my business to the next level and
having the kind of support from the Far & Wide family that I
have not enjoyed before," Herbert said.
Herbert joins a growing roster of tour operators who founded and
built companies from the ground up and sold to Far & Wide. The
firm already acquired Central Holidays, Swain Tours, IST Cultural
Tours, Tourlite, Zeus Tours and Pacific Bestour, keeping the
entrepreneurs who founded them on board to head divisions.
By becoming part of Far & Wide, African Travel will be able
to take advantage of expensive and sophisticated technology under
development that would otherwise be "prohibitively expensive" for
an independent firm, he said.
That technology includes a "killer platform" that will link all
the brands together and become a backbone for the company, said
Barry Kaplan, Far & Wide's executive vice president. The
technology will not be available for at least a year.
As with its other acquisitions, Far & Wide is not making
major changes to 28-year-old African Travel, which will remain
based in Glendale. Its operations and product offerings to Egypt,
southern and eastern Africa will remain largely unchanged.
Far & Wide recently signed its first preferred deals with
two consortia, Vacation.com and Giants, with its brands offering a
joint commission policy.