Inchcape Shipping Services is to acquire Global Marine Travel, effective 31 May 2010.
Global Marine Travel is a specialist travel agency and related service provider to the marine, offshore and yachting industries providing a global travel solution to its customers from its head office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and from offices in Vancouver and the Philippines. The business will be re-branded as ISS GMT and will continue to operate from North America and Manila. GMT Holdings will retain a minority stake in the business and Tim Davey, current President of GMT, will become head of ISS GMT moving forward.
Jon Corner, Executive Vice President Group Commercial for ISS, says: “We have been looking to enter the marine travel business for some time and see the acquisition of GMT as an ideal way to move into the sector. The values and vision of GMT fit very closely with our own and we see strong scope for using the ISS network to build on GMT’s current office footprint. We share many common customers with GMT and have no doubt that bringing together the services of the travel provider and the agent providing marine husbandry services, will lead to a stronger value proposition and increase the strategic partnership value to our customers.”
Tim Davey, founder and President of GMT, says he and his staff are looking forward to the new opportunities for growth with ISS: “This new relationship strengthens our ability to buy into volume-based air, car and hotel contracts and will benefit our existing customers in both the commercial marine/offshore and private yachting sectors,” says Davey. “ISS also brings strong IT and finance expertise which will further enhance GMT’s current services.”
Terry Gidlow, FICS, Executive Vice President Group Strategy at ISS, added: “The acquisition of GMT is the first we have made this year and we see this as the first of several acquisitions we plan to make as part of our 2015 Strategy Plan to increase our Enterprise Value Proposition by expanding both the scope of our proprietary office network of some 250 offices in 63 countries, and by increasing the scope of services that can be offered through our global footprint.”
GLOBAL MARINE TRAVEL
About GLOBAL MARINE TRAVEL
GMT’s marine airfares are specifically designed to assist the yachting community with travel from their homes to wherever the vessel is located in the world… and back. Some examples of people who qualify for marine airfares are:
Captains
Stewards/Stewardesses
Architects
Management
Engineers
Chefs
Builders/Surveyors
Company Trainers
Mechanics
Technicians
Brokers
“At GMT, we work with the airlines to negotiate low one-way fares with favorable terms and conditions to assist our maritime clients move around the globe economically. Our client profiles include people in the private yacht community, cruise line passengers and crew, and concession companies who supply staff to cruise lines and cargo/tanker liners. It is my team’s responsibility to ensure we meet all your travel requests efficiently and provide you with the lowest contracted fare available”
