ABTA WARNS: TRAVEL INDUSTRY 'ON ITS KNEES'
14 Feb 2003 10:56
ABTA has finally confessed the travel industry is on its knees and will suffer widescale job losses if Britain goes to war with Iraq.
In a last-ditch plea for help, ABTA chief executive Ian Reynolds has written to the Government painting a bleak picture of the UK travel industry.
Mirroring Travel Weekly’s month-long anti-war campaign, Reynolds warned the Government travel businesses are going bust, jobs being cut and bookings plummeting. He said the impact of war would go “far wider than the ABTA membership and the travelling public”.
“Our members employ more than 100,000 people in the UK alone,” he said. “Many of them are located in call centres in areas of relatively high unemployment. We are also major employers of school-leavers.”
Reynolds said 14 members have gone bust since September with the number likely to rise. He also said members are reporting falls in bookings of between 15%-25% and redundancies are on the way. MyTravel’s initial phase of consultation with staff finishes at the end of this week, as it looks to take 700 jobs out of the business.
