There are fears specialist cruise agency G&B Travel, which folded this month, may not be the last cruise retailer to hit trouble because of the pressure to discount.
G&B Travel ceased trading on September 11 with 4,000 advance bookings, although ABTA said it was only notified of the failure on September 17.
The agency traded as Gillett Travel and had a single outlet in Bolton.
No detail on the value of the claims was available as Travel Weekly went to press, but the cruiselines appeared to be honouring bookings.
Rivals considered Gillett Travel a strong business, according to Creative Cruises owner Jason Peters, who believes heavy discounting may have played a part in the failure.
Peters said: “Travel agents are scared of losing their customers. If a reputable company is struggling then there are more failures to come.”
GoCruise homeworker Martin Hay agreed, and said: “I’m offering value like I have never seen before – and it is still not cheap enough for customers. Those with deep pockets will get through this, but other agents may not.”
The issue was also highlighted at last weekend’s Advantage Travel Centres conference when commercial director Julia Lo-Bue Said said although Advantage members average 14% cruise commission payments, discounting remains their biggest bugbear.
She called upon the cruise operators to do more to discourage discounting and level out the disparity of rates.
Scottish agency McCarthy Travel also ceased trading this week. The Bathgate-based business was a member of Advantage and also traded as Bill McCarthy Travel, DMC Holidays Direct and in2sun.com.