French specialist ceases trading
French specialist French Freedom Holidays has ceased trading and all seven staff have been made redundant.
The group, which specialised in self-drive mobile home and camping holidays, had 422 advance bookings but no customers overseas.
It operated under several brands in the UK and Ireland, including Welcome France and Welcome Holidays.
It was founded in November 1996 and had two directors, Richard Green and Darryl Skelton, trading from offices in Bottesford, Scunthorpe.
An ABTA member, two months ago it was fined £2,500 by the association’s code-of-conduct committee for breaching rules on misleading advertising.
The company had been advertising mobile home holidays on a campsite which it did not have a contract with.
An ABTA spokesman said the fine was not related to the insolvency of the business.
The association was alerted to the breach of the code by customers, who had complained about the company on TripAdvisor and other website forums.
Administrator Begbies Traynor said it was advising customers with forward bookings to contact ABTA or the Commission For Aviation Regulation (CAR) for those who had booked from Southern Ireland where the company was bonded.
ABTA confirmed that some of the customers it was dealing with had cancelled their holidays before the company went into administration.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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