Holiday travel firms have been hit hard by the lockdown

It is always sad to see a long standing firm go bust, especially if its been active in the local area. For those in the travel trade, it’s perhaps not so much of a surprise that Shearings Holidays has collapsed, as the coach holiday division at least, appeared to be ailing well before coronavirus struck.

It is only days ago that David Urquhart Coach Travel, another huge national coach holiday company ceased trading because of the virus.

Being an incredibly difficult time for all companies operating in this sector, sadly more may yet go under.

It seems to me that the bigger national companies are under the greatest threat right now because the sheer number of liabilities they have, and virtually no money coming in to cover them. Although exceptionally tough for them too, smaller local and regional companies look better placed to ride out the storm, with fewer liabilities and a much more compact base of customers, many of them personally known.

A few years ago in a clever marketing strategy, Shearings adopted the slogan ‘Your local company, nationwide’.

The slogan, however, seemed to be a contradiction.

Can a huge nationwide company offer the same close personal service locally, (as a local or regional company can) when they operate nationwide? Extremely doubtful.

Lets hope there are not too many local people caught up in these collapses, and look ahead to a happier time, perhaps now not too far away when we can all travel again.

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