In the last six months Kuoni has withdrawn from various loss-making European tour operating activities.
In recent years Kuoni has successfully built and developed business activities to capture growth opportunities in a fast changing travel industry. A significant step was the acquisition and integration of Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA) in 2011 and the impressive strong organic growth of VFS Global, now the World’s leading visa facilitation business. In the last six months Kuoni has withdrawn from various loss-making European tour operating activities. The share of businesses in future growth areas represents today the majority of the Group’s turnover. Kuoni has transformed substantially its portfolio of activities and is well positioned to participate in the growing travel sector.
As a result, Kuoni Group is announcing some changes to the Group’s structure and the Executive Board. Leif Vase Larsen will leave the Executive Board owing to a serious illness in his immediate family. He has since six months been on sabbatical leave. We thank him for his dedication to Kuoni in many years and wish him well for the future.
Zubin Karkaria, CEO of VFS Global, joins the Executive Board responsible for VFS Global as a new division. He has built up the visa services business in the past 12 years into the global leader in the field. Stefan Leser will take responsibility for all outbound (tour operating) activities and the Destination Management Specialists. Rolf Schafroth remains responsible for Global Travel Services (GTS) division including both Group Travel and FIT (Fully Independent Travellers).
As of 21 March 2013 the Kuoni Group is organised into the following divisions and activities, which are managed by the specified Members of the Executive Board:
- Global Travel Services (Group Travel, FIT – Fully Independent Traveller) headed by Rolf Schafroth
- Outbound & Specialists (tour operating business in Nordics, Switzerland, the UK, Benelux, India, China/Hong Kong, plus Destination Management Specialists), headed by Stefan Leser
- VFS Global (visa processing services) headed by Zubin Karkaria.
CEO Peter Rothwell and CFO Peter Meier complete Kuoni Group’s five-person Executive Board (see attached organisation chart).
The specialist tour operators in the Swiss market are part of Kuoni Switzerland with immediate effect which is headed by Thomas Goosmann, CEO Kuoni Switzerland. The organisation in the UK is planned to be combined as well and will be announced in due course. Outbound Nordic, headed by Mats Dahlquist and the Destination Management Specialists, headed by Yasser Noman report directly to Stefan Leser on the Executive Board.
The new Member of the Executive Board Zubin Karkaria (44), who is an Indian citizen, has worked for travel company SOTC since 1991, when it was acquired by the Kuoni Group in 1996. He has a BA in commerce from the University of Mumbai. As CEO of Kuoni India, from 2001 he developed and launched the idea of providing external visa services for governments and embassies with VFS Global. He is a pioneer in this type of business. From 2004 he successfully built up the presence of Visa Application Centres (VACs) outside India. The business was developed in countries including Singapore, China, Russia, Nigeria and, since 2013, Saudi Arabia. Another milestone was the first contract for worldwide handling of visas for the United Kingdom from 2007. VFS Global is now the world market leader for visa services. In just 12 years its network of VACs has grown from three application centres in India to 802 VACs in 88 countries by the end of 2012.
The Board of Directors and the Executive Board would like to express their sincere gratitude to Leif Vase Larsen for his many years of dedication. Leif Vase Larsen has worked for Kuoni since 1999 and became a Member of the Executive Board in 2009. He was instrumental in the very successful reorientation of the Apollo tour operator in Scandinavia and from 2009 also heavily involved in the successful restructuring of the European tour operating business. We wish him all the best in his future professional and private life.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
