It was announced this morning that All Leisure Group has ceased trading, taking with it Swan Hellenic and Voyages of Discovery. Some passengers are still being brought back from Malaysia – I think Voyager’s last cruise finished today – but there are no new passengers en-route to join the ships. Here’s a link to a post in Travel Weekly giving more details.
One of the most disturbing points in that Travel Weekly is this: “Approximately a third of the future bookings are UK departing cruises that are financially protected by Abta“. What does this mean for the approximately two-thirds of bookings that apparently aren’t protected by Abta?
Finally, it seems that All Leisure Group’s other brands are safe. They include names such as Travelsphere and Just You, both of which were acquired by “G Adventures” earlier this week. This seems to be an American company dedicated to adventure travel, with a UK subsidiary. I’m not sure how that fits with Travelsphere, for example, but at least Travelsphere and Just You have a new home. Finally, the Travel Weekly article says that Hebridean Islands Cruises was “sold to a consortium of trade buyers before Christmas”. I have no real idea what that means!
This is a sad day for the UK cruise industry. Swan Hellenic and Voyages of Discovery were distinctive and provided a very different product in an era of increasing lavish, homogenised cruise product. Their disappearance is a shame.
[…] did a couple of posts on my cruise blog about the collapse of All Leisure Group, which took with it two cruise lines, Swan Hellenic and […]
Reblogged this on Malcolm Oliver's Cruise Blog and commented:
Tom has this story well covered: