Colorado-based Direct Travel, a leading travel management company, is expanding its reach globally with the acquisition of a British travel company.
Direct Travel, in business for about 50 years, said Monday that it is acquiring longtime partner ATPI. Direct Travel, whose headquarters are in Centennial, said the companies together will drive over $6 billion in annual total travel volume across global corporate and leisure travel, events and specialized travel sectors.
The companies didn’t disclose the deal’s financial terms.
ATPI is a leader in the international travel management space and the two companies have a strong history of collaboration, said Direct Travel CEO Christal Bemont.
“ATPI is known for their global presence. They have a presence in over 90 countries,” Bemont said. “About two-thirds of their business is in specialty markets. There’s oil, mining and energy.”
ATPI also provides event management services, but has limited business in North America. Direct Travel focuses primarily on the U.S. and Canada. About two-thirds of its business is corporate travel.
Bemont said the two companies have worked together the past few years to complement each other’s services.
“We’ve been supporting over 100 customers together,” Bemont said. “ATPI and Direct Travel are very much aligned on caring for customers, but we’re still two separate organizations so the experience from a customer perspective was not optimal.”
The companies believe they can serve customers better by coming together to operate more seamlessly.
“Bringing our two organizations together will enable us to better serve clients collectively, through the combination of our specialized services, innovative technologies, and highly skilled customer teams,” ATPI CEO Ian Sinderson said in a statement.
The newly blended company will be referred to as Direct Travel and ATPI. Bemont will be the CEO and Sinderson will be among the presidents of various groups in the organization. Combined, the company will have approximately 4,400 employees.
Bemont doesn’t anticipate much overlap between the merged companies. “We’re kind of two parts of a whole. It’s really more synergistic than it is duplicative.”
Bemont joined Direct Travel in April 2024. She said she has focused on advancing the technology to match Direct Travel’s “impeccable service for customers.”
Steve Singh, venture capitalist and founder of the travel and expense management company Concur, joined other investors in 2024 to buy Direct Travel. He is the company’s executive chairman.
Bemont worked with Singh at Concur and has worked with him at Direct Travel on integrating more advanced technology across the company for customers and travel managers.
While business travel has bounced back from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, not all travel management companies survived, Bemont said. “They really got hit, like a lot of other industries. I think they’ve fallen behind in terms of technology.”
A lot of companies had to lay off employees, so service has also suffered, Bemont said.
The Global Business Travel Association, which held a conference in Denver in July, expects business travel worldwide to hit a historic high of $1.57 trillion in 2025. However, the group said its forecast shows just a moderate increase of 6.6% this year because of global tensions over tariffs and uncertainty about policies.
The business travel industry supported roughly 98,541 jobs in Colorado and generated $5.5 billion in total wages and other income in 2022, according to the travel association’s report released in 2024.
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