It came as the company’s former international managing director John McEwan spoke out on Radio 4 this morning accusing Thomas Cook of “losing sight of the human side of the tragedy”.

In an interview on the Today Programme, McEwan, who was previously managing director UK and managing director, international encompassing Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific, insisted that the business had been “a very caring company when I worked for them, and I like to think this is still the case today”.

However he added: “They need to think about the human element, and not just the legal consequences. The way that they have handled it from a human point of view is quite poor.

“I think they have been guided by the legal advice they’ve been given,” he said. “They’ve been very clear about protecting their position from a legal perspective, but they’ve lost sight of the human side of the tragedy.”

McEwan, who is also a former chair of Abta, also suggested that the board of Thomas Cook should make itself more visible.

“I think this is a matter for the board – it’s so significant for Thomas Cook and their financial fortunes. If I was to give advice to the board, it would be that they need to be more proactive in explaining the situation, and putting the human dimension on it. I’ve seen the apology that came out, and it was very functional.”

With regards to the £1.5 million Cook received in compensation, which it said yesterday it would be donating to Unicef, McEwan commented: “The donation is laudable but I get the impression they did it because they had to rather than that they wanted to.

“I think they should have had discussions with the family – talked to them about where the money should go or if they should set up a charity on behalf of the children. There appears to have been no engagement between Thomas Cook and the family.”

McEwan also questioned former chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa’s refusal to offer compassion to the parents of Bobby and Christi Shepherd during the coroner’s inquest last week.

“[At the inquest] the previous chief executive repeatedly said ‘no comment’. That may have been legally correct but from a human point of view there should have been some recognition of compassion. Peter [Fankhauser] still has the chance to do that,” he added.

Meanwhile reports in the Financial Times suggested that average monthly searches for Thomas Cook on Google in the UK had fallen 19% to 2.24 million compared with the same time last year, according to a London-based consultancy.