19 March 2009

Seligo changes hands after parent goes into adminstration

Accommodation specialist Seligo has been sold after its parent, Unpackaged Holidays, went into administration.

The assets of Unpackaged Holidays have been sold to The Travel Club, the only company to make a firm offer.

The Travel Club has agreed to honour all forward bookings where deposits had been received prior to the appointment of the administrators, Shipleys.

The majority of the employees' jobs have been preserved.

According to a s†atement issued by Shipleys, Birmingham-based Seligo got into difficulty as a result of the shift in the market away from "dynamic" packing to more traditional forms of package holiday, exacerbated by the decline in the value of sterling against the US dollar and the Euro.

"The difficulties facing the travel industry at this time are well documented and, with a reduced margin in forward bookings and the current economic conditions the company was unable to secure further funding," it said in a statement.

Conrad Beighton, corporate recovery director at Shipleys LLP and joint administrator of Unpackaged Holidays said: "Given the current economic situation, the competitiveness within the industry and the lack of gross margin in the company's forward bookings, the business had a minimal value and this was reflected in the level of interest from potential purchasers.

"An offer recommended by my agents has been accepted which ensures that a number of jobs have been saved and existing bookings will be honoured, so that customers should not lose their deposits."

"The Travel Club Ltd occupies a different niche in the travel market. It sells a limited and partly exclusive range of packaged accommodation direct to customers on its own database which has been built up over more than 50 years."

In 2006, Seligo appointed Steven Freudmann as chairman and his brother Tony as a director.

By Bev Fearis

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Gordon Goes on Holiday

Sending Gordon Brown abroad might give those at home some well-deserved 'rest' from him in the news, but expecting 'a visit' from a Prime Minister to do anything whatever for Tourism in Britain is wholly unrealistic. Years ago one of the (VERY) many ministers with responsibility for Tourism said at a conference at my University that he had been "Tirelessly going round the country 'talking-up' Tourism", which, frankly, is not a bad summary of Government Tourism policy in Britain since the 1969 Development of Tourism Act: talk is pretty much all they are prepared to do. The Tourism structure for government involvement remains the anachronistic result of accidents of political history, and budgets have been systematically excised rather than merely 'whittled' down by parties of all colours. One of the most efficient and effective financial assistance schemes for job creation in Tourism was cancelled (even though it produced a full time job equivalent for far less than keeping a person unemployed for a few months)! Tourism has been kicked from Ministry to Ministry and it is no accident that it is alphabetically last in DCMS's list of responsibilities. Yes, the government could and should do more and it knows it, but Tourism is not a big focal issue like Education or Health and you won't find the industry walking down Whitehall or to a rally in Hyde Park. We are caught on a merry-go-round of very little happening (Tourism has been 'under governmental review... ie an excuse for doing nothing) for almost half of its post 1969 'life'. If one were to give the Government a degree classification mark it would be either 'fail / resit final year' or a 'low third class'.... The situation is only going to change with a complete re-visit of the architecture of government involvement in Tourism rather than a tarting around with the current edifice... and that doesn't seem to be likely: if Tourism budgets are being cut back on the run up to the Olympics, what can one expect in a 'normal year'..less, clearly.

By paul evans, Thursday, March 19, 2009