The purchase gives Hampshire-based Meon a fourth business division, moving it into the schools sector as well as bolstering its meetings, incentives, education, conferences and exhibitions business.

Meon is known mainly for its corporate travel management brand, but also has a medical assistance company and a leisure travel arm, including a high street agency in Petersfield.

Meon director Colin Boddy told TTG Longreach’s team, based in Ashford, Middlesex, and led by managing director Jim Long, would relocate to Petersfield, but added that it had only five staff and that most of these were not office-based. The Longreach brand will be retained.

Boddy said there was scope to expand Longreach and that its expertise in the groups sector could be used to good effect for group travel and aviation sales generally.

“It’s a great opportunity because we already have some experience in group travel and Jim’s business looks like a good fit for us,” he said. He added that the purchase, for an undisclosed sum, did not mean Meon was necessarily at the beginning of a buying spree. “We would never say no [to future acquisitions]… we would look at it,” he said.

Meon’s mix of business means that business travel represents about 80% of its turnover. Boddy added that Meon’s TTG Top 50 Travel Agencies status had given it greater recognition in the sector as a whole.