Leisure Time Group, New Zealand, has purchased Auckland-based event management company, Lime & Soda.
The event management brand is the latest to join the group’s family of brands specialising in travel and events throughout New Zealand and Australia.
The Leisure Time Group operates five other brands including Leisure Time Tours; a New Zeal and touring company with a travel club and its own fleet of motor coaches, Travel Time South Pacific; an Inbound Tour Operator creating quality ground arrangements for international wholesalers and travel agents, and Vokali; a Destination Management Company.
Lime & Soda are a full-service creative event management company specialising in conferences, team building, corporate events, festivals, event styling, and event concepts.
“Lime & Soda perfectly complements our overall events and M.I.C.E offerings enabling us to provide stronger and focussed resources for our event clients,” said Scott Mehrtens, Managing Director of Leisure Time Group.
“Our acquisition of Lime & Soda may appear to come at an unusual time with the country currently in COVID-19 lockdown, but we’ve been working on this for some time and while we’ve had to postpone some imminent events it’s really exciting to see the high level of enquiries we are receiving for events to be held later in the year.
“This investment adds to our capacity, geographic presence, dedicated events staff, and enables us to support increasing numbers of event and incentive enquiries and workload. I’m thrilled that Debra will be managing our events division, including our DMC brand; Vokali. Her longstanding experience in events and her strong creative flair is much appreciated by both our suppliers and clients.”
Debra Dufty, the previous business owner of Lime & Soda, will be joining Leisure Time Group and heading the Events/M.I.C.E team. Debra said she was excited to be joining forces.
“It’s very exciting to be working now as part of a larger team including experienced and passionate event and travel professionals. The strengths and knowledge within our team help us create and deliver fun and creative event solutions for our clients,” Ms Dufty said.
