Travel Counsellors buys Canada’s The Travel Agent Next Door

Manchester-based Travel Counsellors, which is backed by Vitruvian Partners, has bought Canadian travel agent network The Travel Agent Next Door (TTAND) to form a business operating on both sides of the Atlantic.

Travel Counsellors supports more than 2,200 independent travel entrepreneurs through its technology platform, in which it invests close to £20m a year.

Recent investment includes TC Co-Pilot, its own data-driven AI agent, built to make the travel business owners in its network more productive so they can combine technology with personal service and give customers tailored advice.

TTAND runs a similar model and is Canada’s leading community of travel agents, supporting more than 1,700 independent professionals. Its annual turnover is around CAD$500m.

It was set up in 2014 by chief executive Flemming Friisdahl and two other experienced travel entrepreneurs, and has grown quickly to become the leading provider of personalised, premium leisure travel advice in Canada, which is among the world’s biggest outbound travel markets.

Deal details

The combined group will have more than 3,900 travel business owners and strong brands in the UK and Canada. Friisdahl will continue to run TTAND as chief executive, and its agents will in time move on to Travel Counsellors’ technology platform.

Travel Counsellors now operates in seven international markets. This is its third acquisition in three years, after Planisto, a technology platform, in January 2024 and Holidaysplease, a UK premium leisure travel company, in March 2023.

The deal follows a record year for Travel Counsellors. Over the 12 months ending 31 October 2025 it recorded £1.1bn in total transaction value (TTV) and EBITDA above £40m, double its pre-pandemic level, with compound EBITDA growth of nearly 15% a year over three years.

With TTAND, the group expects to reach £1.5bn TTV and £50m EBITDA over the next 12 months.

Steve Byrne, chief executive of Travel Counsellors, said: “We are delighted to join forces with Flemming and the team at The Travel Agent Next Door, Canada’s most successful travel agent community. TTAND is a business we have long admired for its strong entrepreneurial culture and leadership, exceptional internal engagement amongst its community of travel business owners, and outstanding reputation for providing first-class customer care.”

“This is a partnership where the combined company will become more than the sum of its parts. Both organisations have been built on strong values that put people, personalisation and entrepreneurial spirit first. TTAND’s established leadership team share our hunger to grow and continue to disrupt the leisure and corporate travel market through highly personal service and a relentless focus on the customer, powered by a continuous investment in market leading technology.”

He said the two businesses would learn from each other while gaining “superior scale, clear local market leadership and expertise, and – in time – the benefits of our technology platform driving enhanced personalisation for the benefit of TTANDs agents and customers.”

Byrne added that the acquisition gave the company an important route into the “significant” North American market.