Tourism World

VFM acquires Leonardo - why this deal makes sense?

This is probably one of the big news in the technology hospitality industry this month. The Canadian company VFM Interactive founded by Paolo Boni has acquired the European venture Leonardo Media leaded and owned by David Elton. Both companies are specialized in providing technology and platforms for hoteliers to load and distribute their pictures, virtual tours and videos (some call of this above "rich media"). Ealier this year, VFM Interactive was successful to raise $13.5 million from VCs to support their ongoing expension domestically in the US and Internationally. Since then, VFM has boosted their sales force in the US by hiring more people and appointed John McAuliffe in August as chief marketing officer. European expension was still on its way and the acquisition of Leonardo will probably help this in a big way. Leonardo has been one of the pioneers in believing in "rich media" and has been traded for more than 10 years with key hotel chains like Sheraton.

Both companies combined would mean that their platforms support different forms of imagery from more than 80,000 hotels around the world. It also means that their distribution channels contracts are probably more solid than they ever were. VFM and Leonardo work with OTAs like Travelocity, TripAdvisor or Priceline but also with GDS.

At this stage, no sign of one brand absorbing the other. A website has been created with the new name VFM Leonardo Inc. But surely, hotels won’t have to sign two contracts anymore if they want visibility online as much as possible.

I would be interested to see in the next coming months if hoteliers finally embrace the video media and load this on VFM Leonardo platforms. I see a lot of videos edited by tour operators or online hotel specialists or consumers like me (see my latest video at the Scarlet hotel in Singapore) but very few hoteliers display their hotel video on their site. However, I am sure  big hotel chains like Sheraton or Intercontinental hotels have serious plans about this like this one for instance.

Now the story behind this acquisition doesn’t say for how much Leonardo was snapped by VFM. Can anyone guess?

Source: Guillaume Thevenot