Ormès gives CWT new scope in the MICE market

The Carlson group has announced the acquisition of Ormès, a French MICE specialist and long-standing player in the market. Combined with TMC's Meetings & Events division, this new asset should make CWT a major player in the MICE market. The deal also illustrates the potential synergies between business travel and MICE, which have been mooted for several years without any major concrete progress in France.

By The Editor -

Published on 10/06/2015

Has the time finally come for MICE and business travel to come together? Possibly, if the latest moves on the French market are anything to go by. Following on from Frequent Flyer Travel Paris, which launched its exclusive partnership with Dream ConceptNow it's CWT's turn to assert its ambitions in this area. On Wednesday, the business travel heavyweight made official its acquisition of the Ormès group. The merger between the historic MICE specialist - forty years of experience and the Meetings & Events division of the business travel agency, is to create a "French champion", according to the press release. The new entity will be led by Michel Dutertre, Chairman of Ormès, assisted by Agnès Benveniste and Philippe Blond (CWT) and Patrick Funel (Ormès). Their objective has already been set: " create the French leader in the design and organisation of corporate events (MICE/Corporate). To achieve this, the new entity, with its considerable human, technological and financial resources, will focus on "customers' need for advice, support (...) in digital form and the ability to respond internationally", according to Bertrand Mabille, CWT's Vice-President for France and the Mediterranean.