This article from Travel Weekly is bearish indeed about one of the final stalwarts of the High Street (and internet), the Travel Agents and the Tour Operators whose holidays they sell. IMO this is a sector which will never recover even after the end of the coming depression - since the internet has largely rendered it redundant anyway, and since another 6-10 years of internet familiarity by the public will mean that actual human face to face holiday selling is unlikely ever to be seen again on a large Lunn-Poly-esque scale in the UK. Of course that's another 15,000 home owners or renters who will struggle to pay their mortgages or rent:


More than 15,000 travel jobs could go in the next year, study suggests

(16 July 2008)
More than 15,000 tour operator and travel agency jobs are could be at risk in the coming year, a report has revealed.

Industry analysts Plimsoll Publishing has released a new report claiming as many as 6,945 travel agents could lose their jobs over the next 12 months as the economic climate continues to worsen.

The latest research is revealed in the third edition 2008 Plimsoll Analysis. Yesterday it was announced that as many as 8,389 jobs could be lost in the tour operator sector in the next year.

Senior analyst David Pattison said the jobs losses in the travel agency sector will come as companies seek to bring costs into line with sales while as many as three quarters of the 1,000 companies analysed will need to make staffing cuts.

Nearly 250 of the companies surveyed are already running at a loss while it is recommended 181 companies should consolidate immediately in order to avoid further losses.

A further 290 companies are advised to make minor adjustments to their business plans in order to maintain profitability. More promisingly 529 companies are generating sales of more than £349,000 per employee and are well-equipped to weather the next year of trading.

Pattison said: “The 181 companies we have identified as in danger need to act now if they are to survive. It very important they review their entire business cost base and take action now to significantly reduce their outgoings.

“While job losses are undoubtedly bad news for any company, such decisive action may be called for to guarantee the ultimate survival of the business - even if this means the business is 30 or 50% smaller than it was.”

by Edward Robertson

I certainly agree with that one. When it comes to the masses, a decent, always-on, cheap, and generally reliable internet connection has only really been part of reality during the last five or so years, so by the end of the current Problems (guessing about five years until things start to perk up a bit myself) that level of internet familiarity will have doubled. I'd be genuinely surprised if the net hadn't almost completely lunched the high street travel agent by then.

"Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it... oh, you have, bugger"

You still have travel agents in UK?

I travel about 30 long haul flights a year and haven't used anything but the Internet or phone since the mid 90's...

Yes there is going to be a landslide of Travel Agent closures, and I'm starting to wonder if (and I don't really know why I feel this) Phone shops are going to be following on not far behind..?

And then the local councils will be rising their rates to try and get more revenue from less shops and businesses.....


Whhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Quite agree, internet booking is straightforward. OTOH, my experience is that any travel agent queried on anything more complex that a fortnight's B&B in Majorca is totally stumped anyway.

Travel has followed the same trend as house prices over last 10 years. What happened to the camp sites on the continent so popular in the 80's? We've gone greedy with our time off; spend '000s on trips to the far flung corners of the globe. Same symptoms, same causes, same results.

Sssh. Those of us who want to get some sun, away from the Chavs, are still using them.

Still going strong:

www.eurocamp.co.uk

www.keycamp.co.uk

http://www.matthewsfrance.co.uk/

Not everyone is going for long-haul holidays......

Not only will a prolonged depression kill off high street travel agent shops, but it will also see the end of much of our Teletext advertising, glossy travel mags (far too many of the Sunday Times Travel supplement and wedding/honeymoon type mags in my opinion, all depending heavily on tour operator travel ads and doomed).

Even before the credit crunch and high inflation, tour operators were losing business big time to online rivals portals or to the trend of people wishing to use the www to package up their own holidays, flights and accommodation etc, individually tailored and often cheaper bu cutting out the tour operator middle man.

Hence now, with consumer collapse and air fare cost increases, shares in the big boys are tanking - we could see them gone, or significantly changed into Expedia type outfits (guss what, even Expedia is tanking) within 10 years. Everything we do will be reshaped by the current confluence of several crises at once

I think high street travel shops were very much a thing of the 60s/70s package tour boom anyway and in long-term decline.

I seem to recall that when package tours first started, you actually started your trip at the shop in the High Street where you booked - the rep met you there and the old coach was parked outside that took you to the airport, and the rep helped you through check-in etc because people were unfamiliar with the process.

Once people got used to airport travel, this was gradually scaled back until the high street shops just became glorified brochure libraries.

Passed a branch of Thomson near me yesterday and was surprised to see a sign in the window saying it is closing down at end of this month. Work being moved to main city centre branch.

No, you,ve been watching "Carry On Abroad"; Kenneth Williams, Tour Guide; Barbara Windsor and Sid James as punters; Spanish resort called "El's Bells"! Fantastic.

The whole series should be set texts for any social history students in the 21st century IMHO!

Love that film and agree - I watched it last year and the revolutionary rebel in it reminded me that until the early 70's Spain was still a fascist dictatorship under Franco. Bizarre when you think about it's democracy now. Who knows, it may revert to military rule when things there get really ugly, when the last Brit boards the last flight out of the Costas

Another one bites the dust, this slowdown is going to be a huge source of low paid job losses - any HPC poster's have your summer hols booked with this firm? If yes, start to panic....Now:



Bournemouth agency Travel Worldwide ceases trading

(22 July 2008)
Travel agency Travel Worldwide ceased trading on Monday.

The company, based in Wooton Mount, Bournemouth operated 25 online brands, the largest of which was flight-only site skybargains.co.uk.

Any claims arising following the agency’s end of trading should be referred to ABTA’s claims handling partner CEGA on 01243 621500 or email abtaclaims@cegagroup.com.

by Edward Robertson

I book the odd holiday online but honestly find booking online to be a bit of a chore. I find it easier to go to the travel agents, tell them what I want and let them find it for me. For holidays booked in advance the price differential is non-existant and you find that many of the internet advertised deals don't actually exist when you try to book.

end of retail as we know it.

EA's.Travel agents,bank branches,phone shops,what's gonna be left.

If you know where you want to go, you can save serious money by buying the flights and accomodation seperately yourself.
Travelrepublic (+ others) for hotels and ryanair, bmibaby, monarch etc for flights. You will save a LOT on the brochure price, especially out of season. Most of the hotels used in brochures are available to book direct on the web these days. The only thing you lose is the transfer from airport to resort which is a big issue if frail, disabled, etc so agents do still have a place.

Just use Resorthopper do transfers form airports to resorts dead cheap in season

Each town will have a few Tesco branches, and maybe an Argos.

What else do you need apart from that? Everything else will be on the internet.

Also when most of the sheeple have gone bankrupt, they will no longer have credit or debit cards to be able to book online, they will have to pay with cash at a travel agent if there are any left . . .

Another small travel group kicks the bucket. Anyone ever used these companies?:

Cyprus and Greece Direct ceases trading

(05 August 2008)
Tour operator Cyprus and Greece Direct Ltd has ceased trading, ABTA has confirmed today.

Based in Barnet, North London, the company also operated under the names Ambassador Travel and Absolute Holidays.

A representative of the company told travelweekly.co.uk said it was about to hold a meeting of creditors before going into liquidation.

Any claims should be referred to ATBA's claims handling partner CEGA before February 1 2009 on 01243 621500 or abtaclaims@cegagroup.com.

Haha I love that film, also 'Are You Being Served: The Movie' where they go to the Costa Plonka.

Maybe I am confusing my social history with Carry On films...but I seem to recall coaches leaving from travel agents was mentioned in a doc on BBC4. Reps used to show 8mm films about the resorts in the function rooms of pubs, while getting everyone sloshed on free plonk, then get them to sign up for their holidays!

I don't think it became a democracy until 1976 actually (same with Portugal) and even in 1981, there was an attempted military coup which, legend has it, was largely foiled by the King himself. They only joined the EU in 1986.

To Quote Iric Idle....

"What's the point of going abroad if you're just another tourist carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Coventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their Sunday Mirrors, complaining about the tea - "Oh they don't make it properly here, do they, not like at home" - and stopping at Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamares and two veg and sitting in their cotton frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh 'cos they "overdid it on the first day." And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Continentales with their modern international luxury roomettes and draught Red Barrel and swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into queues and if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night the hotel has a bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring a tiny emaciated dago with nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a big **** presenting Flamenco for Foreigners. And adenoidal typists from Birmingham with flabby white legs and diarrhoea trying to pick up hairy bandy-legged wop waiters called Manuel and once a week there's an excursion to the local Roman Remains to buy cherryade and melted ice cream and bleeding Watney's Red Barrel and one evening you visit the so called typical restaurant with local colour and atmosphere and you sit next to a party from Rhyl who keep singing "Torremolinos, torremolinos" and complaining about the food - "It's so greasy isn't it?" - and you get cornered by some drunken greengrocer from Luton with an Instamatic camera and Dr. Scholl sandals and last Tuesday's Daily Express and he drones on and on about how Mr. Smith should be running this country and how many languages Enoch Powell can speak and then he throws up over the Cuba Libres. And sending tinted postcards of places they don't realise they haven't even visited to "All at number 22, weather wonderful, our room is marked with an 'X'. Food very greasy but we've found a charming little local place hidden away in the back streets where they serve Watney's Red Barrel and cheese and onion crisps and the accordionist plays 'Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner'." And spending four days on the tarmac at Luton airport on a five-day package tour with nothing to eat but dried BEA-type sandwiches and you can't even get a drink of Watney's Red Barrel because you're still in England and the bloody bar closes every time you're thirsty and there's nowhere to sleep and the kids are crying and vomiting and breaking the plastic ash-trays and they keep telling you it'll only be another hour although your plane is still in Iceland and has to take some Swedes to Yugoslavia before it can load you up at 3 a.m. in the bloody morning and you sit on the tarmac till six because of "unforeseen difficulties", i.e. the permanent strike of Air Traffic Control in Paris - and nobody can go to the lavatory until you take off at 8, and when you get to Malaga airport everybody's swallowing "enterovioform" and queuing for the toilets and queuing for the armed customs officers, and queuing for the bloody bus that isn't there to take you to the hotel that hasn't yet been finished. And when you finally get to the half-built Algerian ruin called the Hotel del Sol by paying half your holiday money to a licensed bandit in a taxi you find there's no water in the pool, there's no water in the taps, there's no water in the bog and there's only a bleeding lizard in the bidet. And half the rooms are double booked and you can't sleep anyway because of the permanent twenty-four-hour drilling of the foundations of the hotel next door - and you're plagues by appalling apprentice chemists from Ealing pretending to be hippies, and middle-class stockbrokers' wives busily buying identical holiday villas in suburban development plots just like Esher, in case the Labour government gets in again, and fat American matrons with sloppy-buttocks and Hawaiian-patterned ski pants looking for any mulatto male who can keep it up long enough when they finally let it all flop out. And the Spanish Tourist Board promises you that the raging cholera epidemic is merely a case of mild Spanish tummy, like the previous outbreak of Spanish tummy in 1660 which killed half London and decimated Europe and meanwhile the bloody Guardia are busy arresting sixteen-year-olds for kissing in the streets and shooting anyone under nineteen who doesn't like Franco. And then on the last day in the airport lounge everyone's comparing sunburns, drinking Nasty Spumante, buying cartons of duty free "cigarillos" and using up their last pesetas on horrid dolls in Spanish National costume and awful straw donkeys and bullfight posters with your name on "Ordoney, El Cordobes and Brian Pules of Norwich" and 3-D pictures of the Pope and Kennedy and Franco, and everybody's talking about coming again next year and you swear you never will although there you are tumbling bleary-eyed out of a tourist-tight antique Iberian airplane"

I cannot wait for the day when I can go through an airport and actually be treated like a human being rather than cattle.

The whole low cost airline thing with overcrowded airports only happened because of massive numbers of people borrowing to go on many more trips than they would have done otherwise. Look at the success of Ryan Air - its base is Eire where of course we had the biggest HPI in the world and now look we have HPC and they are cutting routes.

I remember travelling long haul in 1990 - 95 and really enjoying it while other stayed at home and worried about negative equity. Planning to take the wife and kids on a full round the world trip in Club class in a couple of years time right at the pits of the recession. Its very very good value if you go all the way round in the same direction and wil be cheaper still when airlines have too much capacity and fuel prices have dropped back a lot more.

There is a plus in using travel agents that are ABTA registered as you do get that guarantee/support if your holiday hotel or airline goes bust and you are stranded in a foreign location. You don't get that, I believe, with Internet holiday booking???

I have to admit, having recently begun to look at holidays, that they are eye-wateringly expensive this year and that is even before you get anywhere and begin spending your spending money. No wonder so many Brits are staying at home in this grey, wet, miserable weather this year.

We are a non-ABTA internet booking agency and our British clients would always get their money back if they pay us more than 100 quid by credit card, if we take their money and run off to the windies for instance [err, hang on...] due to the CCA 1974.

But, you are correct in that someone stranded down-route if their non ABTA agency bought package holiday post tour-operator collapse would have to buy themselves back to Blighty with fresh ticketing on alternative planes, albeit with the comfort of knowing that good old Northern Rock Visa card will refund them later. Having said that, most airline-only ticket sales would be protected by ATOL, even if made by an approved retail agent, so one way or another folks should get some protection. The totally unregulated areas of travel these days seem to involve internet sales of concert tickets, Beijing Olympics and so on - internet shopping hazards for sure, unless that UK credit card is used and the amount is over 100 pounds. But these are pure scams.

Some intriguing internet scams in recent years have involved non-existent but nice looking and very attractively priced villas and hotels with great websites - they make loads of forward sales, then the website promptly disappears, as the property never actually existed but the website used pics copied from other places. It pays to do some research on review sites to avoid these issues. I feel sorry for the buggers who turn up in Orlando etc, only to find that the villa simply does not exist, with the kids screaming after a long flight! Nightmare. Probably explains why at least once every month a browser emails me an enquiry along these lines: " I am very sorry and do not mean to cause offence, but do you exist?" Very existential.

Thomas Cook closed it's shop in the High Street this week. I used to get brochures out of it for travel ideas. Haven't used a travel agent since 1999, and that closed about 7 years ago. You don't see many travel agents these days. A dying breed perhaps?
We now have no travel agents in our sizeable commuter town.

In addition, another estate agent went under as well. They sure are struggling these days. Every advert now has "new price" beside it, confess, it is really a "price reduction".......

The local shopping mall is also losing shops at a rate of one a week. Every time I go now, another one has bit the dust.

Charity Shops are doing well though.

Estate Agents
Travel Agents
Mortgage Brokers
Insurance Brokers

What do they all have in common?

They're all just middle-men - selling on behalf of a third party.

While there will still be a market for their services it definitely does not require a face-to-face contact across a desk in a high street branch. It can all be done via a website.

The old business model of physical high street branches is completely dead.

Retail in general however, will survive. Small independent reatilers will move into the vacant shops one day...



...when landlords realise that the halcyon days are over and rents fall in half. The excellent new legislation on council tax on empty commercial property will help.

True - over the years those high street shops have been hit by competition from out of town developments, the internet and now recession should deal the final blow. Just like many pubs, I imagine that some folks will put in applications to convert them to dwellings - a common site in rural villages is old shops now acting as someone's living room. Coming soon to Average-Joechester high street. Was it Hitler or some other major historical figure (Napolean? escapes me) who said that "England is a nation of shop-keepers"? What would he say now: "England is a nation of indebted shopaholics".

thomson travel agents have just closed in torquay highstreet along with a large dorothy perkins,three new units started in tail of the madness,completed turn of the year remain unlet,about six or seven shops at the top end (union st)have closed and remain unlet in last 12 months.estate agents hanging on with reduced staff,connels have removed their dumb posters claiming now is the best time to buy before the next boom starts and the weather is shit cold wet and raining every f**king day

You are the King of gloom! Tell me if I am mixing Torquay up with Newquay, but if I am not, did you receive the isual annual influx of aussie, kiwi etc surfers this year or was it in decline along with your high street and weather?

torquay is south devon(torbay)newquay is cornwall,we have mostly traditional holiday makers and foreign students,the weather you cannot beleive it,i play internet poker all day but i like to take a break sit by the harbour with an icecream or sit in the sun but the weather has been well ****,as for as the economy,developments have been abandoned ,two major employers have closed or are closing uniq and milk processer,but i would prefer to be down here when shit hits the fan next year than some of shit holes up north,what everyone one should be focussing is the budget defecit probably heading for 100 billion next year. anyway i enjoyed your airline thread and i'am going out for my icecream the rain has stopped but its sill cold&overcast and good luck with your new life.

Tautology, surely?

CBI survey finds falling confidence in travel

(26 August 2008)
A survey by the Confederation of British Industry suggests travel firms have had a difficult summer despite recent positive trading by TUI Travel and Thomas Cook.

The study found business volumes at travel companies falling at the fastest rate for five years and the value of businesses and their profitability down for the second quarter in succession.

The quarterly survey of service-sector profitability concludes: "Travel services firms have had a particularly difficult quarter. Their business volumes fell at the fastest rate for five years." It warns: "Further steep falls are expected over the next three months."

CBI chief economic advisor Ian McCafferty said: "Profitability in the service sector is clearly under pressure."

The findings contrast strongly with recent quarterly results from the UK's leading travel groups, TUI Travel and Thomas Cook, showing demand for this summer in line with capacity and prices up year on year.

The survey of 176 firms across consumer service and business and professional firms was conducted between July 23 and August 6.

by Ian Taylor

http://news.ulookubook.com/Brits-Won%E2%80...0864164328.html

http://www.lamangaspain.com/news/Credit-cr...s-18749266.html
There have been a raft of articles saying that the credit crunch wont effect holidays or travel agents.... ;p

Yes but it does not take Sherlock Holmes to spot that the articles claiming all is rosy in the travel industry garden, are, shock horror, based on reports and studies commissioned by the travel companies. They are ramping, and their ramping will become increasingly desperate until the receivers turn off their internet lines. Reminds me of the Titanic wireless operator who stayed at his desk until the last minute, sending out the SOS

There is something to be said for being able to go into a store and handle the merchandise before buying. What is of course happening now is that scum like me go into the store...look at the products and then buy online if it is cheaper (which it generally is.) I've wondered whether there might be a transition where shops act as almost advertising sites for what are effectively web businesses...they are no longer assumed to be able to turn a profit from high street sales...a change in business model etc. etc. This might thwart independent retail scenario you outline.

I sort of presume that this is how the Warhammer 2000 business works, as I cannot see how they sell enough in-store to cover the cost of rents. Anyone have personal experience of how this company makes its money? They tend to have large stores, not in the main thoroughfares, but certainly in the shopping district.

http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=9376138

Meanwhile, UK carrier XL Airways has cancelled all flights to the Caribbean this winter due to the economic downturn and rising fuel surcharges, which have added about £100 to return-ticket prices.

sorry CB

Thanks, but the sympathy should go to the 4000 pre-booked pax now hoping for refunds, including several large wedding parties (MEW weddings!) now having to pay double for seats on Virgin or BA. Gone forever are the cheap long-haul airlines like Excel and Zoom, plus the associated package holidays which were able to maintain keen prices by using the charters...henceforth with a couple of exceptions hanging on before death (eg Thomsonfly) the Caribbean is reverting back to 1980's flight profiles - expensive, chav free. A real blow to the hotels and workers of the region, especially those hotels under construction whose business model was based on plenty of bums on seats.

Another travel firm bites the dust - happening nearly every day now.....


Gatwick operator fails with 300 abroad

(29 August 2008)
Gatwick-based seat-only operator Pure Flights has failed with 300 UK holidaymakers abroad.

An ABTA member, the company offered charter flights from several UK airports to destinations in the eastern Mediterranean, including Turkey and Crete. It sold mainly through travel agents.

The Civil Aviation Authority estimates 1,000 customers have advance bookings and will lose their flights.

However, Pure Flights held an Air Tour Operators' Licence and passengers will be fully reimbursed under the ATOL consumer-protection scheme administered by the CAA.

Those due to travel should submit a claim to the CAA at www.atol.org.uk. The CAA will handle arrangements to fly those overseas home once they have completed their holiday.

And another one dies, happily trading since 1986 and ONE OF MY COMPETITORS!:

Travel agency ceases trading

(04 September 2008)
Van Haydon Travel in Leicester has ceased trading.

The travel agency, which also traded under the name Magenta Skies, pulled the plug on September 2.

LINKY: http://www.magentaskies.co.uk/

Any claims made by members of the public or suppliers should be referred to ABTA’s claims handling partner CEGA on 01243 621500 or email ABTAClaims@cegagroup.com.

All claims and supporting documentation must be received by March 2, 2009.

by Edward Robertson

How are ATOL and ABTA funded? Do they collect premiums?
If they have to keep paying out for all these failed companies, do travel firms and airlines get stung for higher premiums?

sorry if stoopid questions

They make money from sale of licenses (ATOL) or memberships (ABTA) but unlike many of their clients, they do squirrel away the funds during all the good years, which leaves plenty for the bad years (or at least it always used to in past recessions - this one might be a test!)

thanks CB

And another one, this agency was established in 1986 as Worldwide Tailor Made Holidays , then later on added an online agency Bluebookonline.co.uk and had offices in Kent. More unemployed ladies (not being sexist, they usually are ladies). It makes one wonder how a firm established 22 years ago can have made no £ provision for a downturn, especially after they went through 1990-92.....

Worldwide Tailor Made Holidays Limited
Sterling House, 150-152 High street, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1BB

Trading as Bluebookonline

We regret to advise that, due to difficult trading conditions, the company ceased trading at 4.00pm on Tuesday October 7th 2008.

Agents who have prepaid for arrangements yet to commence should contact the Trustee of the trust account:

Mr P. R. M. Reader FFA
Marryat Reader & Co
62a King Harold's Way
Bexleyheath
Kent DA7 5QZ

In writing with evidence of payment to arrange a refund of monies received.

All payments in respect of travel arrangements not yet completed are 100% secure within the trust account.

They are still doing pretty well, I hear.

I made a mental note of what was happening with the Eurocamp accomodation when we had a holiday in France this summer.

The tents were chocked full of Brits (saw one foreign car all holiday), the large luxury 'vans were having longer than ususal voids, and the smaller vans were mainly occupied by continental europeans. Felt a bit flash in a two bed 'van!

Stark contrast to last summer when the 'vans occupants seemed to all be Brits with new cars and/or 4x4's.

What happens with many smaller businesses, and I'm sure most travel agents are not immune to this, is that when the owners smell a major down turn, they start taking on company debt and then via clever accounting start loading up their bonuses and pension schemes, this extra debt then leaves the business vulnerable to whatever is going on, however the owner/s have effectively jumped ship before it has even sunk, letting the company go bankrupt. This happened to a marina down on the south coast last year, the ex-owner had loaded his pension fund up so high, he is now retired on £20K per Month. His ex employees of course got nothing. Just as with what's gone on in banking, much of what transpires in the back rooms of businesses is based on deceit and greed and immorality, even if legal. I learned a lot of these tricks when I owned a small industrial type business some years ago, however seems I had more ethics than many business men (that I personally knew at the time) when it came to looking after personal wealth at the expense of others.

This failure, today, upset me when I received the email this morning, then checked the shut-down message on the website:

http://www.ecobookers.com/

Ecobookers.com was run by a genuinely pleasant woman from Leeds, but closed down due to lack of bookings (am unsure if there were any fiscal issues behind the decision - anyone got a website where you can search by company name for those in administration?).

So in addition to everything else we have another .com collapse too - Expedia, Oppodo, Hotels.com (and my own company) etc all way way down on bookings and profits, losses are starting and folks rarely make much effort to keep online-only companies running when they start to make losses, as their is little in the way of tangible assets to support refinancing or resale efforts, unlike a chain with shops, staff etc. Cruises for 2009 are now available at half price, the cruising gravy train had dried up just at the moment when several new super-liners have come down the slipways.

We are all doomed, doomed I tell you!