3 August 2009

Western & Oriental plc

Agreement with Spring Partnerships UK LLP

("Spring Partnerships")

Western & Oriental plc, the specialist luxury travel group, today announces a two year commercial agreement with Spring Partnerships. Under the terms of the agreement Western & Oriental subsidiary, W&O Events Limited, will operate all the event logistics activity of Spring Partnerships.

Spring Partnerships is a performance and management consultancy business that provides high performance leadership, team, and management coaching services. It also delivers conference content management services to clients. Spring Partnerships has over the past 6 years established a reputation for high quality incentive and conference logistics. Going forward, Spring Partnerships will work with W&O Events for the delivery of this aspect of its services. With immediate effect, Spring Partnerships has transferred approximately £300k of event revenue to W&O Events and it will refer all future events logistics and event organisation enquiries. The initial agreement is for a period of two years during which both parties will seek to further develop the business.   

David Howell, Chairman of Western & Oriental plc said: "I am delighted to announce the agreement with Spring Partnerships. W&O Events has performed well over the last 18 months, and this agreement is in line with our strategy to develop the event management business. The agreement brings access to a niche and loyal client base, which we would not have been able to reach directly. We look forward to working with Spring Partnerships and its clients to grow these relationships further." 

Stephen Archer, co founder of Spring Partnerships commented: "This is an excellent arrangement with W&O Events which ensures a continued level of excellent service to our clients and allows Spring Partnerships to focus on its consultancy and conference content business. We have been most impressed by the skills and experience that W&O Events has to offer and we really look forward to working with them in the future". 

Enquiries:

Western & Oriental plc

David Howell, Chairman 020 7821 4078

Collins Stewart

Adrian Hadden/Ileana Antypas 020 7523 8353

Temple Bar

Tom Allison 020 7002 1080

About Western & Oriental plc

Western & Oriental is a specialist luxury travel group.  The company was admitted to trading on AIM under the ticker symbol WEST in March 2006.  The group acts as a tour operator, travel agent and conference and incentive organiser offering a premium service for tailor-made and specialist packaged holiday programmes to destinations worldwide. For more information on the group and its individual luxury travel brand websites, go to www.westernorientalplc.com.

RNS news service provided by Hemscott Group Limited.