One of the industry’s leading accountants has predicted further travel company failures before the year is out
Speaking at TTG’s “The High Cost of the Lowcostholidays Collapse” debate last week, Chris Photi, head of travel and leisure at White Hart Associates, said: “I don’t think it’s the end of the failures if I’m honest – I think this year could see some more.”
JacTravel chief executive Terry Williamson highlighted that there had been some large failures overseas recently and that tour operators going out of business was “not an uncommon thing”.
While some agents lost out financially after Lowcost collapsed and the costs incurred by credit card companies may “come back to businesses”, there have been some positives for the rest of the industry.
“When a large travel business fails the knock-on effect to the travel industry is generally a good one,” said Photi.
“After Lowcost, search engine optimisation and Google costs shot down, and consumers looked to rebook their arrangements.”
Meanwhile, Feefo chief commercial officer Matt Eames added that among its 3,000 merchants they observed “no change [after the Brexit vote].”