ITG International Tourism Group acquires leading tourism consultancy firm THR Tourism Industry Advisors.
Just months after its creation, by the coming together of tourism marketing agencies: Interface Tourism (France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands), GCE Global Communications Experts (Germany), and Black Diamond (UK), ITG International Tourism Group has today announced the acquisition, through its Spanish office, Interface Tourism Spain, of 80% of the renowned international tourism consultancy practice THR Tourism Industry Advisors.
THR was established in Barcelona nearly 40 years ago by Eulogio Bordas as one of the world’s first strategic business consultancies working exclusively for the tourism industry. Since then, THR has successfully carried out over 1,100 projects in over 70 countries all around the world. THR currently offers services in four main areas: destination management (defining tourism strategies to develop successful destinations and improve their competitiveness and sustainability), destination marketing (promoting enduring attractiveness through innovative marketing and branding methodologies), digital tourism (digital transformation and implementation), and investment services (creating and optimizing value propositions for tourism developers and investors).
Eulogio Bordas will continue to contribute actively to the company’s success as founding partner and shareholder. He will also continue to provide senior counsel to some of THR’s legacy clients. Executive control of THR will pass to senior partner Christophe de Bruyn who has been CEO since 2017.
Christopher Pomeroy, Executive Board Member of ITG and Executive President of both Interface Tourism Spain and THR, explains the importance of this strategic acquisition to ITG’s expansion plan: “ITG brings together an integrated group of experts with the mission of rethinking the way tourism is managed and marketed today and in the future. To do this we are investing heavily in technological innovation and the talent needed to apply creative thinking, data and insights to each area of tourism management and promotion from strategic planning to implementation. With the incorporation of THR into our group, we are immediately able to advise and support tourism destinations and strengthen every link in the tourism value chain. THR and ITG are both leaders in their fields and we share many clients for services that vary from feasibility studies, market research, policy, planning and organization right through to branding, creative, content, trade and media relations, on/offline media, PR, social media. THR has also been using some of our ITG tools such as our traveller profiling platform Travellyze in its consultancy work and the synergies are clear.”
Eulogio Bordas, for his part, adds “THR is an international reference in a global industry but until now, we have not been a multinational. We have worked for over 70 countries from one office in Barcelona and we have long been considering the best way to expand our presence in Europe. So, when the board of ITG shared their vision of a new concept of vertically integrated, pan-European group, the synergies were as clear as the advantages for our clients, our respective businesses and ultimately our whole industry. We are proud and incredibly excited to join the team”.
Through the incorporation of THR into the ITG group of tourism industry experts, each of the ITG agencies can now offer an unprecedented scope of tourism marketing services in their respective markets.
