The Travel Vault becomes the second official Atol franchise and in contrast with other forms of financial protection does not require a bond or the holding of clients’ monies in a trust account.

Instead companies will protect air and non-air holidays under an insurance scheme.

Currently, 32 members protect their non-air holidays through The Travel Vault, and around five of them are expected gain approval for a Travel Vault Atol in the coming weeks.

Members will be charged a flat percentage of the holidays sold each month with prices starting from 0.75% of the holiday price for non-air holidays and from 1.2% for air holidays.

Operations director Simon Brodie said: "The Travel Vault is a totally unique business model.

"We’ve listened to tour operators who say they want a straightforward, cost effective solution to deal with the regulatory side of running their business.

"We are the first membership organisation designed specifically to cater for tour operators who want to remain totally independent, use their own suppliers, manage their own cash and have their own unique Atol number."

Tour operators selling no more than 1,000 holidays a year can now apply for an Atol via The Travel Vault.

The establishment of a new Atol franchise comes at a time of some uncertainty for small travel businesses.

The CAA had floated the idea of abolishing the Small Business Atol (SBA) but abandoned the proposal last year.

New financial tests for SBA holders were also due to come into force but have been delayed.

Brodie added: "There’s a lot of uncertainty in the small business space right now, particularly amongst SBAs and new entrants.

"The CAA has not yet announced which financial tests will apply, bonding is increasingly challenging to arrange and further changes are on the horizon with the revamping of the Package Travel Directive.

"The good news for our members is that none of this should concern them because we take care of it all. In an area of the travel industry that is notoriously complex, we’re providing simplicity”.

The CAA has been hinting for while that it was open to new types of financial protection. It will be interesting to see whether more products become available over the course of 2016.