Flight Centre is expanding in Québec with the announcement today that they intend to acquire Quebec City-based travel company Les Voyages Laurier du Vallon (LDV).

The acquisition will significantly strengthen FLT's presence in Canada's second largest province, a market where FLT is currently under-represented, partly due to challenges posed by complying with local guidelines relating to use of the French language.

"Quebec is a large and attractive market for FLT, but our ability to expand and grow market-share in this province has, until now, been constrained." said Graham Turner, FLT’s managing director, and the acquisition will fast track FLT’s growth. "By working with LDV, we will be able to leverage the business's local expertise, experience and linguistic capabilities to grow our presence in Canada's second largest market, which is a major corporate hub and home to a large and active leisure travel population.”

The LDV website indicates that they are members of both UNIGLOBE and Virtuoso, although it is highly likely that those agreements will come to an end with this transaction.

"There are also opportunities to capitalise on other synergies and to help grow LDV by drawing on FLT's:

• Corporate product suite
• Proven marketing expertise
• Global supplier relationships; and
• Rapidly expanding range of unique airfares, packages and in-destination offerings, which can be distributed through the LDV network."

John Beauvais, Flight Centre's president in Canada, added that the acquisition is an integral part of the Canadian growth strategy. "We are thrilled to be working with LDV, an established company in a market where we see enormous potential."

A privately owned business, established in 1963, LDV has become one of the largest independent travel agencies in the province of Québec with six locations across the Quebec City region and one location in Montreal. It currently employs approximately 100 people across its three core business units; a five-shop luxury leisure travel business, similar to FLT's Travel Associates offering in Australia, generates approximately 50 per cent of LDV's sales; a corporate business operating out of Québec City and Montreal, generating approximately 40 per cent of sales; and an emerging MICE business.

Nicolas Racine, LDV’s general manager, will remain to run the business and will become part of FLT's senior leadership group in Canada, reporting directly to John Beauvais.

FLT's broader Americas division, which is now the company's second largest business by sales (behind Australia), is headed by Dean Smith and includes:

Flight Centre Travel Group is on the acquisition trail, having acquired two travel companies earlier this month - Olympus Tours in Cancun and Bespoke Hospitality Management Asia in Thailand. And in April of this year they secured a 24.1 per cent interest in Bibam(Biblos América), an Argentina-based travel and technology group. Bibam is Argentina's second largest travel group, and owns and operates the Biblos brand, as well OTA Avantrip.com.

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