Large travel company closes down, some travelers left stranded | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

While the last 12 months have seen the bankruptcy of several high-profile airlines like Spirit (SAVE) and Silver Airways, a number of tour operators have also fallen upon hard times.

On June 13, British travel company Great Little Escapes LLP found itself suddenly stripped of the license required to operate after sustaining losses of £77,000 ($103,000 USD) in 2024 and £186,000 ($250,000 USD) in 2023. The Berkshire-based tour operator had also worked under names like Your Holidays and Tunisia First, while positioning itself as the organizer of “holidays to the world’s most iconic cities.”

British tour operator Jetline Holidays similarly lost its license a few months prior, while in June 2024, German group tour giant FTI Touristik GmbH suddenly shut down and canceled over 175,000 tours, despite securing €125 million in new funding just a few months earlier.

In explaining the decision, Chief Executive Karl Markgraf said the company’s “increased need for liquidity […] could no longer be bridged.”

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‘Customers who have not yet started their trip should not do so’

The latest travel company to file for bankruptcy is the Hungarian operator Unitravel Kft; the Budapest-based tour operator was established in 2007 in and is among the largest in the country. Some of its most popular services shuttled Hungarian tourists to resorts in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, and Spain.

According to local news reports, the sudden closure has left tourists currently at resorts on Greek islands like Crete, Kefalonia, Zakynthos, Corfu, and Halkidiki uncertain of how they will get back — Unitravel Kft said it has initiated the steps of returning those stranded abroad, but urged anyone who has not yet started their booked tour not to do so “under any circumstances.”

“Unitravel Kft has been placed in a state of insolvency and is therefore unable to fulfill its obligations,” the company currently states on its website in Hungarian. “The return of our customers who are abroad is assured; however, we explicitly and categorically appeal to our customers who have not yet started their trip not to do so under any circumstances.”

As part of its explanation for the sudden closure, Unitravel Kft said that “new, foreign companies entered Hungary with huge financial resources, offering incredibly low prices and extremely aggressive marketing” that pulled customers away from smaller local operators without equivalent resources.

Unitravel Kft is a travel company that offered tours from Hungary to the southern European country.

Image source&colon; Shutterstock

‘Obliged the travel agency to immediately provide the insurer with the data necessary’

A Hungarian government office overseeing transportation has also issued a statement saying that it is working with Unitravel Kft and its insurance provider to provide compensation to customers with disrupted travel.

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“The government office announced that, acting as a commercial authority, it had initiated an extraordinary procedure, in which it deleted the travel agency from the register of tour operator and intermediary companies, and called on the insurance company contracted with the travel agency to start compensating the passengers,” Budapest outlet HVG reports. “[…] The authority obliged the travel agency to immediately provide the insurer with the data necessary to compensate the passengers. According to the information received during the procedure, the repatriation of passengers abroad has begun and is ongoing.”