The combination of the CAT Media portfolio with Northstar’s market leading The Meetings Show in London creates a strong multiplatform marketing services, information and event portfolio in the UK and Europe serving the meetings and incentives industry,– Thomas Kemp, chairman & CEO of Northstar Travel Group
LONDON – Northstar Travel Group, parent company of Travel Weekly Asia, is extending its breadth and depth in service of supporting the global meetings industry with the latest acquisition of UK outfit CAT Media.
Based in East Grinstead, England, outside London, CAT Media is a leading global multiplatform business-to-business marketing services, information and events business serving the meetings and incentive industry.
CAT Media owns leading brands serving the UK and global MICE industry including Meetings & Incentive Travel (M&IT), Association Meetings International, Meetpie.com (an online membership portal for meetings professionals), M&IT Challenges, M&IT Awards, VenueSource.com, and Convention-Source.com.
“The combination of the CAT Media portfolio with Northstar’s market leading The Meetings Show in London creates a strong multiplatform marketing services, information and event portfolio in the UK and Europe serving the meetings and incentives industry,” said Thomas Kemp, chairman & CEO of Northstar Travel Group, in an announcement on Oct 8.
“Both Northstar Meeting Group and CAT Media have been industry leaders not only through our respective brands, but through the innovative ways we’ve advanced them. We’re excited to merge the best practices of both through this acquisition.”
CAT Media managing director Martin Lewis said his company is “pleased to complete this transaction with Northstar to create scale and a multi-platform media, events, and marketing services business serving UK and European MICE industry”.
“After 32 years of developing our activities in this fast-changing market, this is a good time to marry our products with Northstar to give our business the critical mass and enable it to become part of a truly global media footprint in the travel and events business,” added Mr Lewis.
Northstar Meetings Group’s executive vice president and group publisher David Blansfield welcomed the CAT Media brands to the Northstar family.
“Taken together with the Meetings Show, the UK’s largest MICE-industry hosted buyer show, and Northstar’s leading brands including Meetings & Conventions, Successful Meetings, Incentive, Meeting News and SportsTravel in North America, and M&C Asia and M&C China in Asia, the addition of CAT Media extends our breadth and depth in service of supporting the meetings industry,” said Mr Blansfield.
The acquisition of CAT Media came just a day after Northstar announced two other major deals. On Oct 7, the group announced it acquired Buying Business Travel, serving the corporate travel marketplace, and travAlliancemedia, an important player in the retail travel space.
Buying Business Travel, previously owned by London-based Panacea Media, is the leading business-to-business brand in the United Kingdom, serving the corporate travel industry with online media, events and print magazines.
The acquisition of travAlliancemedia adds key retail travel brands to Northstar’s portfoilio, including TravelPulse.com, TravelPulse Canada, Agent at Home, Travel Agent Academy, Agent Studio and a portfolio of custom content solutions, marketing services, and software and marketing tools.
With these three important acquisitions, Northstar chairman and CEO Mr Kemp said: “We have expanded our global footprint, strengthened our positions in core markets and added strong brands and talent across three of our strategic market segments: retail/leisure travel, corporate travel and the meetings and incentive market.”