Latest news with #travelagency
ABC News
6 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
Collapsed tourism agent Traveldream may have taken customers' money while insolvent
Australians who say they have been left stranded overseas and broke after their travel agency collapsed have now been told the company was likely trading while insolvent. Melbourne-based agency Traveldream — which was registered as Australian Travel Deals Pty Ltd and sold discounted flights, cruises and international tour packages — collapsed in April and went into voluntary administration. Now, an administrator's report has found the company was "likely" trading while insolvent from 30 June 2024, more than nine months prior to entering voluntary administration. Directors found guilty of allowing a company to trade while insolvent can face civil or criminal penalties and be banned from managing companies. Do you have a story to share? Email ABC News has spoken to dozens of travellers who booked once-in-a-lifetime overseas trips through the agency, many spending between $10,000 and $30,000, only to discover their bookings had been cancelled — in some cases mid-trip. If the company went into liquidation, there would be some possibility their costs could be recovered, but it would be a lengthy process. Debts to customers, who are considered "unsecured creditors," would be some of the last — and least likely — to be repaid. Cairns healthcare worker Glenys Carpenter and her husband Glen booked a $32,000 tour of Canada and the US in February — during the period the travel agency was likely trading insolvent, according to the administrator's report. They were due to fly out on Monday, but this week discovered several tours and the hotel rooms they paid for had been cancelled. "I've lost sleep, lost weight and the stress has been unbelievable. People need to be held accountable." Some customers remain overseas, re-booking hotels and tours at their own expense. Others have cancelled plans they cannot afford to pay for again. Brisbane couple Michelle and Peter Brown landed in Toronto after 20 hours in transit — only to be told their hotel room did not exist. Days later, their Las Vegas accommodation was also cancelled. "We had confirmation emails for everything. We borrowed money and planned for this for years," Ms Brown said. Administrator Mcleod's investigation into the full financial picture remains ongoing. Since March, Traveldream's sole director has been Christopher Banson, who co-owns Saltwater Properties — a company operating high-end holiday rentals across Australia and which holds stakes in more than 30 other businesses. Documents filed with ASIC show Traveldream owed Saltwater Properties more than $758,000. The administrator's report also showed nearly $1 million in payments flowed from Traveldream to Saltwater Properties over four years. "I note that the company and Saltwater Properties regularly transferred funds between one another," the administrator wrote. Mr Banson told ABC News Traveldream was "funded by Saltwater Properties" and blamed the company's downfall on a separate wholesaler, My Travel Experience. He said Traveldream paid My Travel Experience in full for customer bookings and that it was the wholesaler who failed to pass on funds to hotels and airlines. But the wholesaler's director, Russ Masterson, rejected this, and said his company never took money directly from Traveldream customers and that cancellations were likely due to non-payment. Traveldream was stripped of accreditation by the Australian Travel Industry Association in 2020 over concerns about its directorship and finances. Despite that, the company's website continued to display badges claiming affiliation with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). ABC News has confirmed Traveldream was never a CLIA member and can also reveal it was operating without a trust account to hold customers' money — a key consumer protection mechanism used protect client funds in the event of collapse. Jodi Bird, an insurance expert at consumer group CHOICE, said the collapse exposed major weaknesses in consumer protection for those booking travel online. He said Australians left out of pocket by failed travel booking companies had limited options to recover their money. Australia once had a national consumer protection scheme for travel bookings known as the Travel Compensation Fund (TCF), that would compensate customers if a travel agent became insolvent. Membership in the TCF was mandatory for licensed agents, but the scheme was abolished in 2014. Swinburne University corporate governance expert Helen Bird said the travel industry should consider an emergency indemnity fund to protect consumers. "If I were the big players in the industry, I would be doing that, because it's their reputation as much as the little players'," she said. Kim Arnold — director of policy and education at the Australian Restructuring, Insolvency and Turnaround Association — said if the company was placed into liquidation, the liquidator may be able to pursue the director personally for debts incurred while the company was insolvent. "Either they reach a settlement, or the court makes an order and then the director has to pay that money into the liquidation," she said. Ms Arnold said customers would likely remain unsecured creditors and sit low on the list for repayment. A second creditors' meeting will be held on June 3 to determine the future of the company — including whether it will move into liquidation. In the meantime, impacted customers, uncertain whether their holidays will go ahead, have begun tying yellow ribbons to their suitcases — a quiet show of solidarity for those left in limbo. Ms Carpenter said she was clinging to hope that someone will be held responsible. "This isn't just bad luck," she said.
The Independent
27-05-2025
- The Independent
Will my money be protected using travel agencies abroad?
Q I am planning a trip that would involve using an in-country local travel agency. Before sending any money ahead, I need to be sure, of course, that the company is trustworthy and reliable. Clearly they won't have UK protections. Can you suggest anything better than simply reading online reviews? Muthe A The optimum legal status for any overseas trip is a package holiday by air that begins in the UK. That means a flight plus one or more other services: usually accommodation, but sometimes a full organised tour, whether of cultural sights or Himalayan heights. Booking through a British company means your money is protected. And if anything goes awry with the arrangements, the firm that organises the trip must sort out the problem for you. In other words: if possible, you should arrange a trip comprising flights and 'ground arrangements' (ie, a tour with a local operator) through a single UK company. There are, though, plenty of circumstances in which organising a trip like that may be either impractical or wildly expensive. In practical terms, it may simply be because the local operator does not have a UK partner. Regarding cost: if there is a British partner, often the margin added may run to hundreds or thousands of pounds – partly because of the high cost of providing those guarantees on financial and operational protection. As a result of either or both of these factors, I have booked a fair number of trips through in-country travel agencies. In no case have I looked at online reviews. Ideally, it is word of mouth from other travellers I know and trust. Otherwise, knowing that the agency acts as a ground operator for international tour operators is a positive sign. Failing that, arrange a call to the boss or other high-up at the agency and ask lots of questions about the details of your proposed trip. Your intuition should help you decide whether this is someone to whom you can entrust your trip, your money and your safety. Q Please could you tell us if you think Faro airport will get its act together in time for the summer holidays, when thousands of us Brits will be heading there? I am quite worried about the situation. Edie R A For many non-EU passengers flying in and out of Faro airport in southern Portugal, it has been a miserable weekend. Queues for passport checks for 'third-country nationals' have regularly exceeded an hour – while citizens of member states of the European Union (and wider Schengen area, including Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) are given a fast track. As with many other airports around Europe, the vast majority of third-country nationals are from the UK. In one sense, we are getting exactly what we signed up for. The 'oven-ready' deal to leave the EU included British travellers surrendering the opportunity to cross into the Schengen area with minimum fuss. We demanded the right to wait in line while officials scrutinised the passports of all arrivals for evidence of overstaying. Also, on the way out of an EU country, we secured agreement to have our passports stamped, regardless of the risk of missing transfers and flights due to post-Brexit red tape. Yet long waits on arrival constitute a bad way to start a holiday, and on departure, it can be extremely disruptive, expensive and upsetting to miss a flight because of the impossibility of clearing passport control before departure. The Schengen area border code says: 'Member States should ensure that control procedures at external borders do not constitute a major barrier to trade and social and cultural interchange. To that end, they should deploy appropriate numbers of staff and resources.' Staff and resources are the big problems at Faro airport. But I am sure airlines and the large holiday companies such as Jet2 and Tui are speaking robustly to the Portuguese authorities about processing times at the Algarve gateway. If Faro gets a reputation for poor service, many holidaymakers will happily switch elsewhere next time. I am sure the Portuguese tourism organisation is also on the case. Q We are going to Zante for the first time with our three children (age range 11 to 17). What highlights do you recommend? We weren't planning to rent a car. Katie H A Zante, in the Ionian Sea south of Kefalonia and Corfu, is an excellent island for a family holiday. The beaches in the southeast around the main resort of Laganas and strung along the northeast coast are decent. Fresh, tasty food and drinks at reasonable prices are guaranteed. After spending a week in Zante (also known as Zakynthos) last year, I have three highlights. I hope you can tempt your children away from the beach for at least one of them. First, the island's capital, Zakynthos (also known as Zante Town), is most agreeable. Wherever you are staying, there will be regular inexpensive buses to and from. Watch the comings and goings at the port. Wander through the pedestrianised areas. And visit the reasonably interesting archaeological museum (good luck dragging the kids around this one). Next, in the interior of the island, the church of St Nicholas is well worth the long and winding drive to the village of Gerakari. The church itself is atmospheric, but the panorama – with views across the island and beyond to neighbouring Kefalonia – is superb. You can either rent a car for the day (€50 or less, ask locally) or get a taxi to take you there and wait (likely to be in the region of €80). Renting a car will be handy for my third treat: the Keri Lighthouse restaurant in the southwest of the island. The meals are not the best on the island, but the location certainly is: high on a cliff above the most intensely blue Mediterranean water I have ever seen. Just in case you get the urge to explore further afield, you can take a ferry across to Kefalonia in the morning and return in the evening. But I think Zante will have plenty to keep everyone happy.
South China Morning Post
26-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
China, Vietnam reopen railway line amid tourism boom after 5-year pause
China and Vietnam have reopened a passenger train route that was suspended during the early months of the pandemic, a move that could boost already surging tourism between the neighbours and attract more international travellers to visit the mainland without a visa, analysts said. Advertisement Beijing has expanded visa-free access to more countries in recent years, as authorities look to boost the tourism industry as part of China's post-pandemic economic recovery. Vietnamese citizens can now enter China visa-free at select ports if they are part of a tour group organised by a travel agency in mainland China. Trains started running on Sunday for the 11.5-hour trip between Nanning in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, according to Xinhua News Agency. The service, launched in 2009, was paused in February 2020 when borders closed throughout Asia to curb the spread of the pandemic. The reopening of the route would serve tourism growth on both sides of the 1,297-km (806-mile) land border, analysts said. 'Over the past two years there's been a trend of Vietnamese coming in and their economy is expanding fast,' said Steven Zhao, CEO of the Guilin-based online travel agency China Highlights. Advertisement After they arrive in Nanning, Vietnamese passengers would be able to transfer to China's high-speed railway network for cities that they typically like to visit, such as Beijing and Shanghai, Zhao added. People travelling to mainland China from Vietnam accounted for 4 per cent of all arrivals processed in 2023, according to market research firm Statista. By the third quarter of 2024, they made up 23,500 visitors, second only to Hong Kong as an offshore source, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Travel Weekly
22-05-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
Beyond the Sabre Subscriber Agreement
Mark Pestronk Q: For the past several years, Sabre has periodically been sending our agency documents that it calls "programs." Some of these offer new (though small) incentives for new kinds of bookings, such as NDC, and some impose new fees for other kinds of bookings, such as those for low-cost carriers not previously in the Sabre system. I also note that Sabre posts its regular fees on a password-protected website called and Sabre reserves the right to change the raise fees or add new ones by posting them on the website. I have some legal questions about these programs and fees. First, do they constitute amendments to our existing Sabre contract; i.e., are they subject to the general financial and legal terms of our multiyear Sabre Subscriber Agreement, which we spent a long time negotiating? If not, why not, and is there anything we can do to make them part of the agreement? A: The standard Sabre Subscriber Agreement (the "Agreement") states that it cannot be amended without signatures. Two of the most important programs that I have seen do require signatures, but oddly, one is an amendment to the Agreement, and the other is not. For several years, Sabre has been offering Southwest Airlines incentives in an "Amendment to Sabre Agreement Southwest Airlines Opt-In" that is signed by both parties. The legal terms of the Southwest amendment differ from the Agreement in that either party can terminate the amendment immediately upon notice to the other party. Otherwise, the general legal terms of the Agreement apply to the Southwest amendment. For about a year, Sabre has also been offering an NDC program document called Global Agency New Distribution Capability (NDC) General Terms and Conditions. Unlike the Southwest amendment, this one isn't called an amendment, and it is probably not intended to have that effect. It is probably best viewed as a standalone contract. It can be changed by Sabre by posting the change on its website, and it can be terminated by either party on 30 days' written notice. Finally, as you noted, Sabre posts its regular fees on a password-protected website called and Sabre can change the fees or add new ones by posting them on the website, subject to any fee cap in the Agreement. So, what do all these developments have in common? Unlike the provisions of the Agreement itself, Sabre can change these deals at will, on 30 days' notice or no notice. Perhaps Sabre sees the need to retain the right to cut incentives and add new and higher fees as the way of the future for all parts of new Sabre contracts, given the decline in bookings that it is experiencing, according to a Business Travel News report. I imagine that Travelport and Amadeus see the same need and would concur with such a strategy. Your mission -- should you choose to accept it -- is to use whatever clout you have to limit Sabre's contractual rights to worsen the deal at will.
Travel Weekly
16-05-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
Avoiding IC reclassification
Mark Pestronk Q: Our travel agency is expanding by adding independent contractors in several states. We are always mindful of the need to avoid anything that could cause a state or federal agency to reclassify the ICs as employees. I have several questions related to our multistate operations. First, do we have to follow the laws of every state where we have an IC, or is it sufficient to follow the law of the state of our agency's headquarters? Second, can we avoid multistate complications by providing, in our IC agreement, that it will be governed by the laws of our headquarters state? Third, I understand that some states are tougher on IC relationships than others, but what would you say are the toughest states? Which are the most lenient? Finally, is there a test that, if we comply, will ensure that we can avoid the risk of reclassification in every state? A: First, as you probably can guess, you have to follow the law of every state where you have an IC. On the issue of what constitutes a valid IC relationship, the law of the state where your agency is headquartered is less important if you have no ICs there. Second, if you have a contract clause stating that the law of your headquarters state will govern, don't count on a state auditing agency or a court in another state to follow that clause. Although you should certainly have such a clause in case it is upheld, the chances are good that the auditing agency or court will disregard it to protect local workers. Third, the toughest states (i.e., the states where IC relationships are most often reclassified) are California, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, with Washington state and Oregon close runners-up. On the other end of the spectrum are states such as Texas and Florida. I don't mean to discourage you from retaining ICs in the tougher states, because a well-structured IC program can probably pass muster in every state as well as under federal rules. For example, in California you have the so-called ABC test, which is very tough to pass because it requires the host and the IC to be in different businesses. Fortunately, thanks to ASTA, California also has an exception for travel advisors (the so-called AB-5 Test) built right into the law. The host and the IC can be in the same business if the IC has: a) a business location, which may include a residence, that is separate from the host's location; b) a local business license; c) the right to set his or her own fees; d) the right to set his or her own work hours; e) the right to sell through any registered seller of travel; and f) discretion and independent judgment in the performance of services. If a relationship cannot pass muster under all six criteria, there is a very strong risk that a California state agency will reclassify the relationship and try to collect a lot of back taxes and penalties. Finally, no structure is guaranteed to avoid the risk of reclassification in every jurisdiction, so be sure to consult a knowledgeable attorney for further guidance.
