Rockaway buys UK school travel leader Experience Education

Rockaway Capital, the investment group of Czech entrepreneur Jakub Havrlant, is continuing its expansion in Europe: it is buying the British company Experience Education, which organises educational trips for almost 100,000 school and university students every year. The seller is Travelopia, a group owned by funds of the American investment giant KKR. The parties did not disclose the price.

Experience Education has an annual turnover of almost CZK 2.5 billion. Rockaway acquires 100% of the company and intends to make it the foundation of a new European group that will grow, among other things, through further acquisitions.

About the company. Experience Education is one of the largest organisers of educational school trips in the United Kingdom. It works with 1,400 schools and arranges trips both abroad and within Britain. Six well-known brands operate under one roof: Travelbound, SkiBound, Edwin Doran, Masterclass, World Challenge and JCA. Each specialises in its own format of school travel and, according to Rockaway, it is the only British operator covering all the key segments of the market. The deal will be one of the major private equity investments of the Rockaway Fund.

Betting on a fragmented market. “Experience Education is an important step in our further European expansion. We have shown many times that we know how not only to buy quality companies, but also to develop them over the long term, scale them and take them into new markets,” says Jakub Havrlant, founder and CEO of Rockaway Capital.

The British deal is meant to be a springboard for further purchases. The market for educational travel in Europe is fragmented, with many small players. According to Robert Chmelař, managing partner of the private equity fund Rockaway Alpha, the company did not get enough attention inside the vast KKR structure, and that is a big opportunity. The plan is to turn it into the core of a leading European group in educational travel, growing it organically and through acquisitions not only in Britain but on the continent as well.

The previous management, led by CEO John Upton, remains in place. “For more than fifty years, our brands have been giving young people experiences that last a lifetime. Rockaway shares our belief in the importance of learning outside the classroom and brings a long-term approach, capital and experience in tourism,” says Upton.

A recipe called Invia. Havrlant’s group already has experience in the travel business. In 2016, Rockaway bought Invia for roughly CZK 2 billion, expanded it through a series of acquisitions and turned it into a notable European player. Invia Group entered new markets and survived the Covid pandemic under Rockaway, which owned it for almost nine years.

At the end of 2024, Invia was sold to Poland’s WP Holding for almost EUR 240 million, or about CZK 6 billion, roughly three times the purchase price. Rockaway now hopes to apply its experience of building and then selling a large travel business in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.

By the Around Prague newsroom