The London-based long-haul specialist agreed a deal last week (1 July) to buy Infinity Media Promotions Ltd’s business and assets.
These include its Infinity Tours (infinity-tours.com), Infinity Cruises (infinitycruises.co.uk) and Infinity Sports (infinitysportstravel.co.uk and infinitysportstravel.com) brands.
Speaking to TTG, Travelpack director Vishal Patel confirmed Travelpack would take on all existing Infinity bookings and reprotect them under Atol. Patel said this ran to around 500 forward bookings worth £3.2 million.
"Clients can rest assured," he insisted following talks with the CAA. "They shouldn’t worry about their bookings. We will reissue Atol certificates and oblige with the CAA. It is business as usual from our perspective."
In addition, all Infinity employees – around 20 – have joined the Travelpack team and will spend their first full day with the operator on Monday (8 July).
"It’s important to keep these brands alive," said Patel. "People are keeping their jobs and it bolsters our team too. And there will be a lot of benefits for our trade partners as well. It’s great news for them."
Patel said Infinity’s cruise operation was a particularly attractive proposition, and would allow Travelpack to realise its long-held ambition to expand further into the cruise market.
"We took on a cruise product manager pre-pandemic, but they left as we weren’t really ’cruisey’ enough for them," he admitted. "Then this opportunity presented itself – it’s a chance to invest in cruise."
Infinity’s touring specialises in Latin America, and Patel said this presented opportunity to grow its touring offering there and increase sales.
Patel said the acquisition of Infinity’s sports brand, meanwhile, would widen its access to tickets and other major events, while its touring brand – which specialises in South America – would complement Travelpack’s existing touring offering and, importantly, wouldn’t compete with other trade brands.
"There’s no great crossover, no cannabalism, no redundancies," he continued. "These brands will operate independently of each other as two separate trading entities."
Last month, Guy Hollander and Adam Harris from restructuring and insolvency advisory Forvis Mazars were appointed as joint administrators of Infinity. Infinity Media Promotions Ltd (Atol 6792) ceased trading as an Atol holder on Friday (5 July).
In a statement, Forvis Mazars confirmed the sale of Infinity’s business and assets to Travelpack, including the three brands.
"As a condition of the business sale, Travelpack has agreed to honour all existing bookings, with the same terms and conditions that were in place with the company," said Forvis Mazars, adding Infinity customers would be contacted to confirm their contact details and with details of any future payment requirements.
