Ferðafyrirtæki í Bretlandi verða að gjörbreyta viðskiptamódeli til að lifa af árið 2012

Britain’s travel industry faces a tough 2012 after a year that saw 24 registered tour operators fail and one of the big two operators, Thomas Cook, require an emergency bail-out from its banks.

Forecasts from market research group Mintel point to zero growth in the number of overseas holidays by UK travelers in 2011, with an expected 36.4m vacations abroad – a fifth lower than the peak of 45.5m seen in 2008.

Neither does Mintel see any recovery in 2012. Official forecasts point to GDP growth of just 0.7pc next year, while June’s European football championships and August’s Olympics are likely to trigger a “staycation” trend.

“Given the downgrades in forecast GDP growth and upcoming domestic events during the peak summer period, growth in holidays abroad looks unlikely,” Mintel said.

Figures from Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (ATOL) show that 24 ATOL-registered holiday companies went bust in 2011, the biggest of which was the owner of the companies trading as Holidays 4 U and Aegean Flights.

While there were no casualties on the scale of XL Leisure or Goldtrail, the latest Begbies Traynor “Red Flag” alert report for the first nine months of 2011 showed the number of tour operators facing “critical distress” rising 49pc year-on-year.

Given the headwinds faced by the industry, there are also concerns over the growing deficit in the Air Travel Trust fund used to repatriate stranded travellers, which rose from £31.8m to £42.3m in the year to March 31 2011.

Richard Hathaway, KPMG’s head of leisure and tourism, said UK travel companies could “struggle to survive in 2012 unless they continue radically to change their business models”.

Mr Hathaway, who is advising Thomas Cook on restructuring its UK operations, said package trips had dropped to 14.1m a year – back to the level of the mid-1990s – as “more travelers opt for self-packaging online and niche solutions”.

“Businesses that still have significant reliance on committing to capacity the year before the sale season will be less able to adapt to unexpected changes in demand, and thus risk breaching covenants or entering financial distress,” he said.

Thomas Cook yesterday said it had brought in another £15m towards its target £200m of non-core asset disposals with the sale of a Dutch office building.