An interStella deal?

For a nice change, the talk is not about the previous night's frivolities, but quite serious.

Stella Travel Services chose the ABTA Convention to get journos together to announce its deal to buy Global Travel Group.

This kind of thing gets the travel industry here frothing at the mouth as it involves travel agents and some big personalities.

It's all very interesting - but in reality indicates how fragile the independent travel agency market has become - where consortia (GTG runs 800-odd agencies in the UK) can seemingly attempt to buy one another or merge on a weekly basis.

At the Triton conference earlier this year we wrote how disappointing it was that its main event of the year hardly mentioned what any major consortium of agents should be doing to improve its presence to online channels. Which is vital.

Let's wait and see what Stella decide to do...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution