In Europe, Diana Tours/Limpopo Travel (www.diana.dk), is about to expand. A press release we received announced that the former manager of Artemis Tours, Sylvia Gabauer, is joining Diana Tours with a new office in Austria and will be adding new hunts in Asia. There is a long backstory here, of course, one that will be familiar to long-time Hunting Report subscribers. Based in Denmark, Diana Hunting Tours was started in 1974 by Jan Krossteig. When Krossteig sold out in 1998, Diana was, by some accounts, the largest travel agency in Europe. Krossteig went on to found Limpopo Travel, specializing in hunting and tourism travel in Africa. Fast forward to October, 2008, (See Article 2153 in our online database) when we reported that Diana had been run into bankruptcy by its third owner thanks, in part at least, to a failed public offering. Following the rapid collapse, hundreds of hunters were left with hunts cancelled because operators had not been paid. Diana's clients had to scramble for refunds from the Danish Travel Guarantee Fund. A month later (Article 2193) we reported that Krossteig had repurchased the name and some of the assets (mainly contracts with hunting operators) of Diana Tours and intended to operate it from the same offices as Limpopo Travel, but as a separate company. Diana still largely specialized in Western Europe, while Limpopo continued to focus on Africa. That brings us to the present and the news that Sylvia Gabauer has joined Diana. In a recent e-mail Gabauer tells us she served as the managing director of Artemis Tours in Austria until 2006. "For private reasons I stopped my business for the last years, but, being a true hunter myself, I finally decided to join Diana," she says. "At present we are creating a branch office of Diana here in Geigelberg (im Wienerwald) Austria, (011-43-2274-20225; cell 011-43-676-500-20-45; syg@diana.dk). "We are preparing our new catalogue for 2012. I am adding my experience of over 20 years with a large variety of hunts is Russia and Asia (especially Mongolia). We are most willing to work hard to get back clients' trust and........(
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