ABTA stance on trust funds will send more companies bust, says travel accountant
ABTA will have to change its stance on trust accounts or more travel companies will fail, according to leading travel accountant Chris Photi.
Chris, Head of Travel and Tourism at White Hart Associates, said most companies can no longer afford bonding and those that can are struggling to find an insurer that will provide a bond.
And he accused ABTA of acting in self-interest rather than the interests of its members in its refusal to accept trust accounts.
He said it was seeking to protect the captive insurer which underpins its bonding scheme. Also, he claimed ABTA didn’t want to switch from bonds to trusts because its ‘major competitor’ The Travel Trust Association has trusts as its unique selling point.
In a blog post on White Hart’s website Chris wrote: "An increasing move to trust accounts seems inevitable, possibly for the whole industry. It’s the only way forward because the bottom line is that there is little alternative."
While the CAA is to conduct a consultation into trust accounts next year, Chris said ‘ABTA is not looking so progressive’.
"Intransigence on the part of the CAA and ABTA will simply lead to more failures during this desperate period for the industry," he wrote.
Read Chris’s full post here.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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