The Hindu Business Line : IBS Soft acquires Discovery Travel of US

Technopark-based IBS Software Services, a leading provider of software solutions to the travel, transportation and logistics industries, has acquired a US-based company to mark its entry into the leisure travel and tour space.

The acquisition of the Washington-based Discovery Travel Systems (DTS) was closed in the last week of March in a cash-plus-earnings deal in the ratio of 60:40, said Mr V.K. Mathews, Chairman and Managing Director, IBS Group.

The asset purchase agreement provides for acquiring of DTS facilities, resources and operational control of existing and future businesses.

But the size of the transaction was not disclosed.

Inorganic growth

DTS provides business-to-business travel technology systems to the cruise, tour, and vacation travel industry.

Its software solutions address market needs in tour and vacation travel, cruise line on board passenger services and crew management systems as well as cruise line inventory packaging solutions.

The acquisition is the second in recent times by IBS and is in line with its strategy for inorganic growth, Mr Mathews said.

Earlier, the company had bought into Aviant Technologies belonging to Honeywell International.

Speaking to newspersons, Mr John Broughan, President, DTS, said his company would leverage IBS' extensive resource pool, global presence and delivery capabilities to meet needs of customers across the world.

Clientele

On the DTS client list are major cruise companies such as Cunard, Royal Caribbean, MSC and Star Cruise, and Brendan Vacations in the tour and vacation marketing industry.

This acquisition will help create a travel and cruise line business unit for IBS, and will position it as a leading provider of technology systems for the challenging business requirements of tour packagers, vacation travel marketers, and cruise lines.

Consequent to the acquisition, three core DTS products have become part of the IBS portfolio of offerings.

They are: Tour Partner, which addresses the vacation packaging needs of the travel industry; Cruise Partner, a comprehensive web-based cruise reservation and inventory management system; and Ship Partner, which is a property management system for the cruise industry.

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