Travel Counsellors is expanding into North America after acquiring Canada’s biggest homeworking group, The Travel Agent Next Door (TTAND).
TTAND operates a similar business model to Travel Counsellors, and is Canada’s leading agent community, with 1,700 members. The business generates CAD $500 million (£271m) a year.
It was founded in 2014 by Flemming Friisdahl and two other travel entrepreneurs. Flemming will continue as CEO after the acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approvals.
This is Travel Counsellors’ third acquisition in the past three years. It bought homeworking group Holidaysplease in March 2023 and the Planisto technology platform in January 2024.
It follows Travel Counsellors’ record-breaking 2024/25 financial year. In the 12 months to 31 October 2025, Travel Counsellors achieved total transaction value (TTV) of £1.1 billion and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of over £40m.
As a result of the buyout, the enlarged group is expected to achieve TTV of £1.5bn and EBITDA of £50m in the next 12 months.
Over time, TTAND’s 1,700 homeworkers will move over to Travel Counsellors’ bespoke technology platform.
Travel Counsellors CEO Steve Byrne said: “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. Together, we will continue to build on the outstanding culture and essence of TTAND and drive further success.
“The deal is an important milestone in our growth strategy as we focus on leveraging our proprietary technology to build a leading global travel platform, combining the very best of the human touch and tech, to deliver enhanced personalisation, care and peace of mind for customers.
“Canada is one of the world’s largest outbound travel markets and in TTAND we have partnered with one of the most successful travel businesses in that market with significant further headroom for growth in the premium leisure and corporate travel markets. This deal also provides an important gateway for our company into the wider North American market, which represents a significant potential future growth opportunity.
“We closed out our 2024/25 financial year at the end of October with another year of strong profitable growth and record transaction value of £1.1bn. We have our sights firmly set on doubling the size of the business in the coming years underpinned by the relevance and scalability of our model.”
Flemming Friisdahl added: “I have always looked at Travel Counsellors as a leader when it comes to travel professionals that work remotely and flexibly, and I am very excited to be partnering with them for two very important reasons.
“Number one is the culture, it aligns very much with the TTAND culture, given it is all about our support team and our agent partners. The second reason is their commitment to being innovative and bringing the most effective technology tools to their community of travel experts. We cannot wait to bring some of the benefits of Travel Counsellors’ sector-leading technology and product to support our team in Canada.”
