The luxury skiing agency will join Vedere Travel, eShores and The Travel Directors, bringing Travel Seen’s TTV [Total Transaction Value] to an estimated £55 million.
“We have searched for experienced, high growth travel businesses and our investment in Oxford represents our biggest and most transformational investment to date,” said Jen Atkinson, founder of Travel Seen.
“This next investment represents a step change in the scale and credibility of our growth and M&A mission. One of the most important factors when investing is the quality of the team and what Mark and Rupert have built over time is enviable.”
Atkinson founded Travel Seen after a 15-year career spent scaling and leading ITC Luxury Travel, and once appeared in BBC's The Boss series, which profiled different business leaders.
Since it was established in 2021, Travel Seen has focused on value creation once acquisition targets are onboarded.
“This acquisition allows us to push further into that international market,” Mark Gibbins, managing director at Oxford Ski Company, told TTG. “We’ve seen huge growth in the US market – now our largest growing demographic – who are coming to Europe to ski, where you can get more bang for your buck.”
Gibbins, who has known Atkinson for years, added that he and founder Rupert Longsdon believe in Travel Seen’s mission to “grow specialist companies rather than acquire businesses to be absorbed into a single brand.”
He also said the acquisition will allow Oxford Ski Company to diversify its offering: “Our client base is high-net-worth clients who take multiple trips a year, but not all of these trips are skiing. If we can’t give them something, Travel Seen can offer them through one of the other brands.”
The logistics are also beneficial: Travel Seen’s Manchester location means that Oxford Ski Company, which is based in Oxfordshire, can reach more Northern clients.
Gibbins went on to emphasise he and Longsdon will remain at the helm of Oxford Ski Company: “We’re not stepping back – Rupert and I are still maintaining a share and we will still be very involved.”
