AURORA Expeditions has emerged as the successful bidder for the assets of collapsed Boston-based Vantage Travel (CW 07 Jul) after sweetening the cash component of its offer to US$2 million, along with 5% of future revenues through to 2028. An offshoot of Aurora, Pacific Travel Partners, made the deal as...
AURORA Expeditions has emerged as the successful bidder for the assets of collapsed Boston-based Vantage Travel (CW 07 Jul) after sweetening the cash component of its offer to US$2 million, along with 5% of future revenues through to 2028.
An offshoot of Aurora, Pacific Travel Partners, made the deal as part of an auction process earlier this week, in an American bankruptcy court.
The initial bid was US$1.5 million, including a 10% deposit, which was followed by a higher offer as part of a process soliciting final sealed bids lodged by 7pm local time on Tue evening.
After three rounds of bidding, Pacific Travel Partners was victorious, beating out the previous frontrunner, a rival bid by New Zealand-based Heritage Expeditions and its associate Nordic Hamburg (CW 03 Jul) which is believed to have initially offered US$1 million.
Heritage remains the “back-up bid” in the event that the sale to Aurora does not proceed, according to court documents.
The assets purchased include all intellectual property held by Vantage including its trade name “Vantage Deluxe World Travel”, as well as the company’s customer and prospect list.
Vantage operated two expedition ships from the same series as Aurora’s Greg Mortimer and Sylvia Earle, but these were charter operations and are not included in the acquisition.
Court documents indicate that pre-pandemic, Vantage offered more than 500 tour, ocean and river cruise departures annually, and since the company’s 1983 inception, had serviced more than 500,000 travellers.
Like Aurora’s vessels, the Vantage expedition ships Ocean Explorer and Ocean Odyssey were chartered year-round from SunStone Maritime Group, and are currently located in Europe.
Aurora’s offer for Vantage will also see it allow customers of the failed company to use existing travel credits to fund up to 50% of the cost of ocean voyages departing through until 30 Nov 2028, or 20% of river cruises and land trips, but not for air travel or trip extensions.
Credits are transferrable, and any deposits on new bookings from former Vantage clients will be placed in a trust account and not released to Aurora until departure.
The cruise line this week also announced a new North America-centric sales structure, with Toronto-based David Tanguay becoming Global Head of Sales (CW yesterday).
