Chinese company Fosun, which planned to buy a controlling stake in Thomas Cook Group, bought the rights to the tour operator's trademark for 11 million pounds sterling (about 900 billion rubles), FOX NEWS reports.
In addition, Fosun acquired the property rights to the Casa Cook and Cook's Club hotel brands, as well as domain names and associated brands that are known in all global markets. According to media reports, Thomas Cook's competitor TUI Group was interested in purchasing the site, but its offer was rejected. Ironically, Fosun is going to relaunch the tour operator's business, which failed to compete with OTAs, as an online booking system.
CEO of China Tour & Business Travel Sergey Zhang Sha believes that the Chinese holding will use the Thomas Cook brand both to send Chinese to Europe and to organize trips for Europeans to China. The latter, in his opinion, will be supported by the UK leadership.
"Fosun has never sold tours under its own brand - the holding is little known abroad, and even in China it worked under the Thomas Cook brand. Therefore, this decision is quite natural. In addition, the British tour operator was widely represented on the Chinese market, owned real estate and hotels. And Fosun has already invested quite a lot in the Thomas Cook brand. Chinese investors often invest in old well-known brands with a long-standing reputation, such as Volvo or IBM," he told a TRN correspondent.
Source: trn-news.ru