Autumn holiday bookings forecast to rise as industry marks 4 years since Thomas Cook collapse
Experts are predicting the recent spate of bad weather here in the UK will have prompted a spike in the number of holiday bookings this autumn. The news comes alongside a warning from ATOL who're reminding travellers to ensure they're protected on trips, as the industry marks the fourth anniversary of the Thomas Cook collapse.
Transcript
00:00 "When the news came through that Thomas Cook was going to collapse, me personally, I was
00:09 in denial that this will never happen. But it did happen and immediately, it's quite
00:19 amazing that we went into survival mode because at the time we didn't have a bus, we had nothing."
00:28 It's been 50 years since the founding of the Atoll scheme. Most of us have at least heard
00:32 of it, but new research actually shows just over half of people are aware of how to check
00:37 for the holiday protection and one in four say they would either never check for it or
00:41 would only check for it sometimes. But what exactly is it?
00:45 "Atoll provides financial protection to people who book a package holiday that includes a
00:51 flight and that financial protection protects you if in the unfortunate event your holiday
00:57 company ceases to trade while you're on holiday or before you get to have the holiday. And
01:04 so in either of those situations, Atoll would either look to make sure you are looked after
01:08 while you're overseas and then bring you home if it needed to bring you home. Or if you
01:12 hadn't traveled, it would look to then allow you to make a claim for the money that you
01:16 have paid for that holiday. And that's what it has done over the 50 years, as you just
01:20 talked about, and recent big examples of that are Thomas Cook in 2019 and Monarch in 2017."
01:27 Over the last half century, Atoll has grown to financially protect more than 26 million
01:32 passengers a year and there are now over 1,600 travel businesses licensed under the scheme.
01:38 Casting your minds back four years ago now, the collapse of Thomas Cook took place, launching
01:42 the biggest repatriation since the Second World War. It saw more than 140,000 passengers
01:49 brought back to the UK within just two weeks. Carol and her partner Richard were flown home
01:54 during the collapse while they were on holiday in Corfu.
01:56 "We were just watching the TV and we seen it flash across the bottom that Thomas Cook
02:02 had collapsed. And I kind of looked at Carol and I said, 'Why didn't you fly with them?
02:08 Didn't you?' And no sooner I said that, the reps came in and she turned around and said,
02:13 'I'm sorry, obviously you can see that it's collapsed and there's no bus, no plane.' Thankfully
02:18 we were, Atoll, protected. And she went away and spoke to the people she was dealing with
02:23 through Atoll to see how we were going to get rescued. And like Carol said, she came
02:28 back on the Sunday dinner time or so, wasn't it? Which is good news, there's a bus coming
02:34 at 5.30 for you and there's a plane flying in from Rhodes later that night."
02:40 "What I'd also urge people to do is not only check our website, but then when they're looking
02:45 to book, confirm with the company that what they are booking is in fact an Atoll protected
02:49 holiday as well. Because some things can be purchased which aren't Atoll protected. So
02:54 just because you're purchasing it from someone who has an Atoll license doesn't necessarily
02:58 mean it will be Atoll protected. So really reminding people just to do a little bit of