Bourne Leisure has released a statement in regards to its plans to exit the travel trade by next year.
"The Covid-19 pandemic has had a seismic effect on the tourism and hospitality sector and as a result, last month, we shared with our teams the strategies and priorities for each of our three brands to help us not only through the pandemic but ensure the future success of the business.
As a result of this we are needing to make necessary changes to the products and services that we offer. We are confident that our three brands will grow and thrive in the future, but at this stage we cannot say when that will exactly be," he added.
Within these priorities we have set out some organisational and operational changes, both at our Hemel Support Centre and across our parks, resorts and hotels. Our brands, while still under the Bourne Leisure family, will operate as separate businesses each with their own priorities to allow us to emerge from this pandemic in a position to move forward strongly and continue to offer millions of guests a fantastic UK holiday.
We have had to make some difficult choices over the last few months and one of these is unfortunately the decision to exit the Travel Trade. This has not been an easy decision especially as we know that our colleagues in the Trade have also suffered as a result of the pandemic and we hugely value the relationships we have had for many years with these partners and thank them for their support. However, at this time we need to focus our investment in other areas of guest sales and communication.
We have started the process of informing our partners in Travel Trade and the transition period will start immediately. We will have a team in place to manage any Travel Trade enquiries until the end of February and any holidays that have already been booked for 2021 and any booked during the transition period will continue as planned and each of our brands will honour any current booking."
