Vacation World has ceased trading with the loss of 55 jobs after a deal with Midcounties Co-operative failed to transpire.
The 14 shops in the south west have closed this morning and £4 million of forward bookings have been taken over by Hays Travel, as Vacation World was a member of the Independence Group.
Owner Stuart Arnott said it was a “managed close-down” and the company was not going into administration or liquidation.
Arnott took on 92 shops from Harvey World Travel when it failed in 2009. However most have been closed after failing to be profitable and just 14 remain.
He told Travel Weekly: “Trading was poor and the shops were struggling. Being a member of Hays IG took a massive chunk of our profit and the model wasn’t viable any longer.”
Midcounties Co-operative had been lined up to acquire the shops but the deal failed at the last minute.
Midcounties group general manager Alistair Rowland said: “Midcounties worked extremely hard to attempt to secure a future for the branches and employees of Vacation World and the reason the deal did not complete was due to issues outside of our control.”