Athens-based online travel agents Tripsta and airtickets.com have merged claiming their joint size puts them among the top five European OTAs.
The firms, which will continue trading as separate brands, claimed the newly formed merged company is now the largest in southeast Europe and one of the continent’s “power players”.
The deal was said to have been “driven by an increasingly fragmented European OTA market” and will consolidate technology and the customer base of the two firms.
The new entity become Greece’s largest e-commerce company.
It was forecast that the new joint company will command sales in excess of €500 million and will look for opportunities in new European markets.
The combined firm has offices in Greece, Russia, Romania, Poland, Turkey and Brazil.
Philipp Brinkmann, chief executive of Tripsta, said: “We are both hugely excited about this new chapter for our businesses, and the opportunity to perform on a larger global stage.
“At Tripsta our strategy continues to be offering customers the most innovative and convenient travel solutions and the merger will strengthen our ability to do this.
“The European OTA market is very fragmented and, as such, consolidation is a key driver for our future success. Therefore, we will see more of these activities in the market in the future.”
Dimitris Kontogeorgos, chief executive of airtickets.com, added; “The commercial synergies between both our businesses made a clear argument for a merger.
“We will be far stronger together and it will mean we can make wider and deeper investments in important technologies for customers.”
