Harvey World Travel’s 60 shops are continuing to trade as normal despite ABTA terminating its membership.
Owner Stuart Arnott has employed former Lets Go Travel managing director Simon Maunder on a consultancy basis to advise on the business, acquired from Stella Travel Services in March. Some HWT shops are former Lets Go shops.
It is understood ABTA teminated the company’s membership because it had failed to submit its 2007-2008 accounts for the year ending June 2008. Maunder said: “The accounts had not been audited and signed off. It is a problem Stuart has inherited that is in breach of ABTA rules.”
He denied it was linked to any financial instability of the trading shops, adding: “This is not a business in trouble.”
Arnott’s other agency business Vacation Travel already operates outside of ABTA and has built up strong relationships with tour operators, said Maunder.
“Stuart has a relationship with tour operators but you can understand why some might be some nervous because people do not know what this is about – but it’s not about the solvency of the business,” he stressed.
All references to ABTA have been taken off shop stationery and point-of-sale material.
Maunder said he would not have got involved in the business if he did not think it had a bright future. Arnott’s four Vacation Travel shops turn over £27 million.
But he admitted the priority for the business was to sort out the leases on around 30 empty Harvey World Travel shops acquired as part of the deal, for which large rents were still being paid.
“Over the past decade the landlords have pushed the rents on these shops to uneconomical levels and there have been negotiations to try to get these lease issues sorted out,” said Maunder.