The son of Travel Club of Upminster founder and industry legend Harry Chandler has spoken to Travel Weekly about his sadness at the failure of the operator after 75 years.
Paul Chandler, who owns Chandler Travel in Upminster, ran Travel Club of Upminster for 20 years before selling it to Tony Freudmann last year. His father Harry, credited as one of the pioneers of the package holiday, died in 1992.
Travel Club of Upminster and its subsidiary Austria Travel entered administration this week. Insolvency practitioner Shipleys said the businesses, which sold hotel and apartment accommodation mainly in Majorca, Portugal and Austria, had been “unable to continue trading as a result of an inability to meet guaranteed payments to overseas suppliers”.
Chandler said: “It’s sad that it has gone and I’m pleased my parents are not around to see it. They started the company before the Second World War and ran charters in the 1950s.
“We were the opposite of no-frills carriers. We gave customers smoked salmon and steak meals and pampered them. When low-cost carriers came about, people didn’t want to pay for those things any more.”
He said the new owners failed to make the firm a success because it was “too small to survive; it needed to grow”.
“The behaviour of the hotels [making customers pay again] was bad. If they had been patient, things would have been different.”
Travel Club of Upminster director Tony Freudmann said Shipleys was in talks with interested parties about buying the assets of the company. “We were badly affected by the ash cloud and never recovered from that.”
The business employed 10 people.
ITT chairman and managing director Steven Freudmann (brother of Travel Club of Upminster director Tony) has sought to distance himself from the company.