Advantage Managed Services is in discussions with failed agency Ambassador Travel to save at least one of the retailer’s six branches.
Ambassador Travel failed on Tuesday, but its Lee-on-Solent branch has continued to trade and is processing and honouring all existing bookings. All tour operators will be paid. The retailer’s other five branches have closed but it is not yet known exactly how many staff are affected.
It is understood cash flow problems caused the agency’s failure, the first agency within the Advantage consortium to cease trading in 2013.
The agency joined Advantage’s managed services division – in which paperwork, administration, and bonding are handled centrally to allow the branch to focus on sales and marketing – on December 3. The agency had a turnover of £6.5 million.
Advantage sales and marketing director Colin O’Neill said: “Our immediate priority is the customers and paying the operators but we are in discussions to see whether part of the business can be salvaged.”
It is understood the Lee-on-Solent branch was profitable in its own right and will be kept open by the insolvency practioners until at least the end of the month. “We have another couple of weeks to have these conversations. The fact we are so close to our membership means we have good relationships and can entertain the possibility of retrieving some of the outlets,” added O’Neill.
He said the consortium had only had a few members fail in the last couple of years and is hopeful this failure was a “one off rather than a sign of the times”.