Who Bought Whom in 2022

The business travel industry in 2022 may not have had the
heated merger and acquisition environment that marked previous years, but among
the deals that were struck were some big ones, including JetBlue Airways
winning a bidding war for Spirit Airlines and Sabre acquiring virtual payment
specialist Conferma.

The year’s business travel M&A landscape also
underscored a few other trends.

Hotel giants beef up. Some of the largest U.S. hotel
companies struck deals in 2022, including Marriott International’s push into
Mexico’s midprice sector with the acquisition of the City Express brand and
Choice Hotels International’s deal for Radisson Hotel Group Americas. Hyatt
Hotels Corp. continued its push into the lifestyle segment with the agreed-upon
purchase of Dream Hotels. 

The waning of the SPACs. Several major companies in
2021 announced plans to become publicly traded companies through mergers with
special purpose acquisition companies, including American
Express Global Business Travel, Cvent,
Sonder
and Wheels
Up. Each of those companies are now publicly traded, but no new industry
SPAC deals were announced after Rocketrip parent Mondee
did so on Jan. 3, 2022. SPAC dealmaking making in the larger corporate
world waned in 2022,amid closer scrutiny of SPAC performance and increased
regulatory scrutiny, according
to the New York Times. In fact, two previously announced industry SPAC
mergers fell apart in 2022: HotelPlanner.com
and Gett.

The following are all mergers and acquisitions covered by
BTN and The Beat in 2022.

Travel Management Companies
JPMorgan
Chase acquired Frosch Travel Group
Hess
Corporate Travel merged with Maupin Travel
TripActions
acquired Comtravo and Resia
Conlin
Travel parent company NextTravel acquired Menno Travel
Corporate
Travel Management acquired 1000 Mile Travel Group
ATPI
acquired The Travel Authority
Gray
Dawes acquired Ventur Travel
Reed
& Mackay acquired Atlanta Agencia de Viajes

Aviation
JetBlue
Airways agreed to acquire Spirit Airlines
Air
India and Vistara agreed to merge, with Singapore Airlines taking a stake
Wheels
Up acquired Air Partner and Alante
Air Charter
Vista
Global acquired Jet Edge and Air
Hamburg

Lodging
Choice
Hotels International acquired Radisson Hotel Group Americas
Marriott
International agreed to acquire the City Express brand portfolio from Hoteles
City Express
Hyatt
Hotels Corp. agreed to acquire Dream Hotel Group
Wyndham
Hotels & Resorts acquired the Vienna House brand from the HR Group
Benchmark
Pyramid acquired Provenance Hotels
Blueground
agreed to acquire Tabas

Travel Technology
Flight
Centre took a majority stake in TPConnects
TripStax
acquired Hotelzon and TapTrip
Thoma
Bravo agreed to acquire Coupa Software
Snowfall
acquired Psngr1
CDS
Groupe acquired Rydoo’s travel platform
Atriis
acquired reTravel.io
CIBT
acquired Viselio

Expense and Payment
Sabre
acquired Conferma Pay
HRS
acquired Paypense

Meetings Technology
Aventri
and MeetingPlay merged and acquired
Eventcore
Cvent
acquired Venue Directory

M&A in Europe

BTN sibling publication BTN Europe covered several
additional deals in 2022. Read about them below.

Travel Management Companies
Talma
Shlomo Travel Solutions acquired Norad Travel Group
Chris
Thelen acquired Eton Travel Group

Lodging
Tristan
Capital Partners acquired a majority share of Raag Hotels
The
Ascott Limited acquired Oakwood Worldwide
Palace
Resorts acquired Baglioni Hotels & Resorts

Ground Transportation
The
European Commission approved the merger of Eurostar and Thalys
DWS
Infrastructure acquired Stagecoach Group
CMAC
Group acquired Suntransfers and Here
& Dare

Travel Technology
Meetingselect
acquired Cyberdigma
Fleetcor
agreed to acquire Roomex

— BTN Europe’s Rob Gill contributed to this report. 

RELATED: Who
Bought Whom in 2021