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So Farewell then, David Urquhart Travel


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David Urquhart Travel Ltd - Coach and Tour Operations

 

The ongoing coronavirus crisis has had a dramatic impact on all business sectors but especially within travel and tourism. At present it is impossible to establish when coach tour and hotel operations will return to normal operating capacity.

 

The Directors of David Urquhart Travel Ltd have been carefully considering these matters and have made the decision, in the absence of acquisition from interested parties, to wind up the coach tour business in an orderly manner over the next few months.

 

Consequently the Directors lodged an application on 4th May 2020 to the Court of Session to enter into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) for David Urquhart Travel Ltd.

 

This is not a decision which has been taken lightly. The coach tour company has served loyal customers for more than 37 years throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and Ireland and has been a prominent figure within the leisure and hospitality industry.

 

However, we have to be responsive to the significant challenges the company would face if we were not to take decisive action. Customers of David Urquhart Travel Ltd can be assured that all their deposits or payments made are held in a secure independent Trustee Account which is managed by a separate professional Trustee Management Legal Company. All customer funds are entirely safe and it is our intention to begin the process of returning all customer monies as soon as possible. We will be in touch with every customer to confirm repayment details to them.

 

Please bear with us as we expect that it will take around 2 months to complete all this work. We anticipate starting this process on Monday 18th May 2020 and will contact customers whose tours were cancelled in March 2020 working thereafter in date order from that point forward.

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6 hours ago, Cookie Monster said:

David Urquhart Travel Ltd - Coach and Tour Operations

 

The ongoing coronavirus crisis has had a dramatic impact on all business sectors but especially within travel and tourism. At present it is impossible to establish when coach tour and hotel operations will return to normal operating capacity.

 

The Directors of David Urquhart Travel Ltd have been carefully considering these matters and have made the decision, in the absence of acquisition from interested parties, to wind up the coach tour business in an orderly manner over the next few months.

 

Consequently the Directors lodged an application on 4th May 2020 to the Court of Session to enter into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) for David Urquhart Travel Ltd.

 

This is not a decision which has been taken lightly. The coach tour company has served loyal customers for more than 37 years throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and Ireland and has been a prominent figure within the leisure and hospitality industry.

 

However, we have to be responsive to the significant challenges the company would face if we were not to take decisive action. Customers of David Urquhart Travel Ltd can be assured that all their deposits or payments made are held in a secure independent Trustee Account which is managed by a separate professional Trustee Management Legal Company. All customer funds are entirely safe and it is our intention to begin the process of returning all customer monies as soon as possible. We will be in touch with every customer to confirm repayment details to them.

 

Please bear with us as we expect that it will take around 2 months to complete all this work. We anticipate starting this process on Monday 18th May 2020 and will contact customers whose tours were cancelled in March 2020 working thereafter in date order from that point forward.

Wow! a company run by people who value their integrity more than money, very very impressed well done  David Urquhart Travel Ltd, seriously. I am naturally not at all happy it came to this but so full of admiration for the way it is being handled.

Perhaps a little aside is called for here, in that (the owner) of Wetherspoons rightly should be castigated and driven into bankruptcy after the virus is defeated (in my opinion anyway) as a response to the shameful way he treated his staff, conversely, one would hope that a company such as David Urquhart Travel Ltd (should they re launch the business) would be awash with customers supporting 'good people'.

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Hope it bears out, in reality.  I would also like to trust Urquhart’s nice, decent promises...

Travel Companies, legal duties and not quite sticking to their scripts...

i posted a while back (and S Dickson appreciated/took note of) that, at end of March, my intended walking trip on the Amalfi Coast had been cancelled. (All of Italy was locked down).

Riviera travel made similar positive noises about returning my money (£2k+], as is the law.  I was happy and far too trusting...

 

3 weeks later it hadn’t been repaid to my CC account.  I started asking more questions, being not satisfactorily answered.  The Shit govt was offering no help to the travel industry. ( I have no income this year.) and ABTa advised its members to try to hold onto bookings, issue credit vouchers, make deals with customers rather than refund the ££ as it is legally bound to do within 2 weeks.  I needed that money, I pointed out.  Better and safer in my account than theirs.

Riviera’s people on the phone “believe” the govt sanctioned this illegal action of theirs. Riviera is lying to them, also.

i wrote to the ceo.

i went onto their Facebook page, where many apparently content customers were happily deferring their holidays.

i demurred on the Facebook page, again explaining my problem with this.

A nice ‘worker’ soon intervened and contacted me via a private Facebook “chat page”. She offered all the diversionary offers I’d already refused. I explained about it being my money...

she said, she would escalate this. I said I would be briefly patient again. This was now 5 weeks since I was promised my money back.

it arrived in my account last week.

 

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7 hours ago, jaybee said:

Wow! a company run by people who value their integrity more than money, very very impressed well done  David Urquhart Travel Ltd, seriously. I am naturally not at all happy it came to this but so full of admiration for the way it is being handled.

Perhaps a little aside is called for here, in that (the owner) of Wetherspoons rightly should be castigated and driven into bankruptcy after the virus is defeated (in my opinion anyway) as a response to the shameful way he treated his staff, conversely, one would hope that a company such as David Urquhart Travel Ltd (should they re launch the business) would be awash with customers supporting 'good people'.

Not quite sure how you think it's an example of a company acting with integrity. A lot of people will lose their jobs as a result of the closure. Now, if they had used the furlough scheme to pay wages, topped up the shortfall in wages and used the company profits to get through this time, that would be more worthy of commendation.

It is, of course, possible that the company didn't have the money to do this, was already in financial trouble and this has tipped them over the edge. This could make their actions understandable, but still doesn't merit them being held up as an example of how capitalism can be done with integrity. *

* It can't.

Edited by Hendo
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Urquhart’s coach tours must have been severely impacted in the past decade, by the shoals of (much more personal, convenient, efficient and sometimes cheaper)wee bus tours that have exploded onto UK roads.

the comment about lack of interest by others, in acquiring that business, hints that it may have been something they wanted to offload for a while.

My wee, wee-coach company was acquired by an international travel business, which has caused an explosion in numbers of tours, drivers, guides as it had a vast, seemingly unlimited number of well-off people who piled onto our buses.

a quite successful uk route, with 80% filled busses now departs, 100% full... THREE times a week. A similar Scottish tour goes twice a week and we introduced ANOTHER  different round Scotland trip which was going like hot pies...

until cv19.

Unlike Urquhart’s, the international business can withstand the hit/hiccup.  But it’s also doing the Riviera thing, offering a later tour, cheaper... or credit notes in preference to payback.

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9 hours ago, Hendo said:
17 hours ago, jaybee said:

Wow! a company run by people who value their integrity more than money, very very impressed well done  David Urquhart Travel Ltd, seriously. I am naturally not at all happy it came to this but so full of admiration for the way it is being handled.

Perhaps a little aside is called for here, in that (the owner) of Wetherspoons rightly should be castigated and driven into bankruptcy after the virus is defeated (in my opinion anyway) as a response to the shameful way he treated his staff, conversely, one would hope that a company such as David Urquhart Travel Ltd (should they re launch the business) would be awash with customers supporting 'good people'.

Not quite sure how you think it's an example of a company acting with integrity. A lot of people will lose their jobs as a result of the closure. Now, if they had used the furlough scheme to pay wages, topped up the shortfall in wages and used the company profits to get through this time, that would be more worthy of commendation.

It is, of course, possible that the company didn't have the money to do this, was already in financial trouble and this has tipped them over the edge. This could make their actions understandable, but still doesn't merit them being held up as an example of how capitalism can be done with integrity. *

* It can't.

You are welcome to your opinion .....as indeed I am.

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  • 3 weeks later...

https://www.caledoniantravel.com/

The Specialist Leisure Group operated several businesses that sold holidays and other travel arrangements under the following brand names, which have all ceased to trade, due to the impact of COVID-19.
[https://www]
All hotels trading as Bay Hotels, Coast & Country Hotels and Country Living Hotels will not reopen. Click here for a full list of hotels that have ceased to trade.
All Wallace Arnold Travel shops are now permanently closed. If you booked a holiday through a travel agent that was not Wallace Arnold Travel, please contact your travel agent in the first instance.

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Guest TPAFKATS
https://www.caledoniantravel.com/

The Specialist Leisure Group operated several businesses that sold holidays and other travel arrangements under the following brand names, which have all ceased to trade, due to the impact of COVID-19.
[https://www]
All hotels trading as Bay Hotels, Coast & Country Hotels and Country Living Hotels will not reopen. Click here for a full list of hotels that have ceased to trade.
All Wallace Arnold Travel shops are now permanently closed. If you booked a holiday through a travel agent that was not Wallace Arnold Travel, please contact your travel agent in the first instance.

I read shearings was in administration - didn't realise it was that many companies. That's a lot of holidays in Argyll and Highlands
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