The travel recruitment market has bottomed out and is only likely to start improving next year, New Frontiers managing director Julia Feuell has predicted.
Feuell said her company was continuing to receive 1,000 CVs a week, compared with 200 a week last year, but said companies were beginning to hire to fill vacancies previously put on hold.
She said: “Before companies would have put these vacancies on hold, but more decisions are now being taken. Companies have cut costs to the bare bones – no one is leaving and they want to hire some people to keep the business going.
“I think we have hit the bottom and we will keep bouncing along like this until the end of the year, and start to see improvement next year.”
Meanwhile, Feuell said it was business as usual for New Frontiers, which went into administration in April. The assets were sold for £45,001 in a pre-packaged sale to sister company Online Travel Training. It continues to trade as New Frontiers and no jobs were lost.
Feuell said the business had been advised to pursue this strategy by accountants to avoid collapse after the business was badly hit by the downturn and a fall in recruitment levels late in 2008.
She said: “These have been very difficult times. We are trading as New Frontiers and I am still a shareholder. No harm has been done to the industry; I want to get on with business as usual.”
Company creditors, owed £322,542 according to a report by administrators MCR, are being asked to re-invoice the company and are being paid back, according to Feuell. The company has been unable to pay back non-preferential creditors, mostly HM Revenue and Customs. The report said these debts total £271,184.
A pre-pack sale can be used by a company experiencing financial difficulties to save the business and secure jobs. It involves a sale of the business and assets to a third party, existing management or so-called phoenix company, which is often set up and managed by existing directors or management prior to the appointment of an administrator.