Horizontal growth for Eurolines

Eurolines Romania, provider of international bus transportation, intends to develop its operations horizontally, by establishing a number of divisions operating in different yet related fields. The company hopes this strategy will help it attain the 10 million euro turnover target this year. Set up as a provider of international bus transportation in 1995, the company has added seven more divisions in the meantime, which deal in tourism, car rental, commodity transport, courier service, leasing, real estate, interior design, ticketing, insurance and VAT recovery services for those tourists buying products from abroad, as well as a beauty centre. “The holding structure, precisely where tourism is concerned, comes with a lot of benefits, because you can use the knowledge, contacts and equipment of one business for another. For instance, we realised part of the tourists visiting Romania were looking to rent some property and we established the real estate business, while other clients wanted to redecorate their homes so that we established the interior decoration division,” says sales and marketing manager Danut Tanase. The holding posted 7.8 million euro turnover last year and expects to come close to 10 million euros this year. ZF