“Hundreds of thousands of UK Travellers will be affected by budget travel companies going under this

Added: (Fri Aug 20 2010)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Following the demise of holiday companies such as Destinations for Africa, Monster travel, Goldtrail, Sun4U and kiss flights www.Holidayspease.co.uk director Charles Duncombe predicts that “Over 250,000 people will probably be affected by travel companies going bust in the winter of 2010”

He continues to say “It is the summer when the travel sector is at its busiest and therefore should have the most cash. Travel companies do not go bust in the summer. The fact that many have means that, unfortunately, there are a number of travel companies who will probably be using this temporary positive cash flow to keep them going. As the autumn progresses and the bookings start to dry up so will the cash flow and more travel companies are likely to suffer a similar fate. It could easily be another 5 companies with 50,000 passengers each”
So if you are worried about your travel company going bust what can you do? Here are some tips to help ensure you don’t book a holiday with one of these companies.
1) Make sure that your holiday is ATOL protected so if the tour operator or airline go bump you will get a refund (or get repatriated free of charge if you are left stranded overseas).
2) If you are using a travel agent then make sure they are ABTA protected.
3) Pay on a credit card rather than debit card as sometimes your credit card company will be able to get a refund for you
4) Take out high end travel insurance. While it probably won’t cover you for the whole cost of the holiday they can cover you for ancillary costs (such as hotel stays etc..) if there are delays on flights.
5) Search for any signs of financial problems with the company that you are looking to book with. Search on google for terms such as the “[name of holiday Company] redundancies” and “[name of holiday company] financial loss”
6) Look for holiday companies that sell what the industry call “long haul” holidays. These are holidays that are too far away destinations outside Europe. These companies are likely to have much smoother sales throughout the year rather than the feast and famine that can kill short haul travel companies.
7) Do not book with any companies that are a lot cheaper than other companies. If there is a holiday company that is significantly cheaper than prices advertised elsewhere then they are likely to be trading on wafer thin margins. This means they won’t have much a buffer for significant events like the ash clouds and when airline strikes take place. It is better to pay £50 more for your holiday and enjoy it rather than lose the whole cost of the holiday.
There are many thousands of travel companies in the UK and probably only a dozen or two will go bust over the next few months and so you will be very unlucky if you pick the wrong one. Hopefully if you follow the tips above you will decrease your chances of being one of the unlucky ones.
For more information and quotes just contact Gemma Casson-marketing[at]holidaysplease.com