News

Mergers Alliance Leisure Conference - June 2008
22nd Jul 2008

Mergers Alliance is a leading international network of corporate finance advisory firms, with 38 member offices around the world.

Mergers Alliance is a leading international network of corporate finance advisory firms, with 38 member offices around the world. With such a wide global coverage it is increasingly important that the partners and transaction professionals are in constant contact with each other to foster and maintain deep working relationships. These tight knit relationships are most prevalent within the Mergers Alliance Sector Teams, which consist of sector specialist from all the members around the world.

In June of this year, the MA Leisure team arranged a seminar to be held in Barcelona on Friday 13th June, which was jointly arranged by Norgestion & BlueMind on behalf of Mergers Alliance. This event was attended by senior people involved in the leisure and tourism sector from Spain, The Netherlands, UK and Italy.
This seminar was hosted under the theme “Communication between origins and destinations – How tourists and accommodations reach each other”. Under this theme the following topics were discussed:

• The increasing economic importance of the leisure sector
• Use of the internet in building flexible packages as an alternative to traditional package holidays
• Independent travel and dynamic packaging will strongly benefit low cost airlines
• High speed train connections throughout Europe become competition for low cost airlines
• A gradual process of consolidation: specialization versus diversification

These topics were covered by senior specialists within their respective fields including, Professor Fernando Bayon (from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos); Alfons Clave (Director of Investor Relations and PR of Vueling); Jesus Alvarez Gallego (independent consultant); and Marin Muyser (Co-owner of Travel Intelligence).

Regarding the seminar, Stas Michael, the Mergers Alliance Business Manager, had this to say:

“It was very pleasing to see the number of sector professionals attending from all around the world, who have taken time from their busy schedules to travel to Barcelona today. I believe it shows the level of appreciation these individuals have for the sector expertise that the Mergers Alliance member firms can bring to their corporate finance activities.”