The first principle: do not confuse what the tour operator is worth on its own with what the acquirer can create through it.

If additional value emerges only by using the acquirer’s customer base, distribution, teams or marketing power, it is not part of the target’s intrinsic value. It comes from the combination.

A synergy is not what the business is worth. It is the additional value the acquirer can create through it.

Does this value already exist within the target, or does it emerge only through the acquirer’s resources?

A synergy must be traceable to an identifiable driver. For a tour operator, there are generally six mechanisms: reactivating past customers, more efficient customer acquisition, cross-selling, access to new distribution channels, cross-leveraging customer bases and enhancing the offering.

The aim is not to multiply categories, but to require each assumption to answer a simple question: through what concrete mechanism does this synergy generate revenue or margin?

Avoid vague phrases such as “strong commercial potential.” A synergy starts to become credible when you can describe the path from an asset or channel to the expected revenue.

The size of a database is never a revenue assumption.

Before modeling reactivation or cross-selling, you need to isolate the genuinely addressable population: recent customers, customers who are still active, profiles compatible with the offering, contacts that can legally be used and channels that are actually available.

Addressable population × contact rate × conversion rate × average order value × frequency

This formula requires assumptions to be made explicit. In particular, it prevents tens of thousands of contacts from automatically being translated into theoretical commercial potential.

A synergy does not exist the moment it is identified. It exists when it becomes actionable.

Some can be activated quickly, such as a campaign targeting recent customers or distributing an existing offering through a new channel. Others require data migration, rebuilding the offering, changes to tools or team integration.

You therefore need to assign timelines to synergies and distinguish what can reasonably materialize in the short term from what depends on a longer transformation project.

A synergy available in three months does not have the same value as one that requires two years of transformation.

Gross potential is rarely the right measure.

A synergy often requires investment: CRM migration, reactivation campaigns, development of new offerings, technology integration, process adaptation or strengthening teams.

Net synergy = value created – realization cost – execution risk

The benefit of this perspective is simple: two synergies with the same revenue potential can have very different values if one can be activated immediately while the other is costly or uncertain to realize.

The final step: understand where the additional value really comes from.

Reactivating the tour operator’s past customers relies primarily on an asset belonging to the target. Cross-selling to the acquirer’s customers relies mainly on an asset belonging to the buyer. A new offering combining the tour operator’s expertise with the acquirer’s distribution, meanwhile, comes from the combination of both.

This distinction is essential in a valuation discussion. Otherwise, the acquirer may end up paying the seller for some of the value it will itself create after the transaction.