Is Tour Operator Cox & Kings the Next to Fall?
Skift Take
Debt-addled Cox & Kings appears to be teetering on the brink of collapse. It has closed its Australia/New Zealand operations. Virtuoso has severed ties with it — and a rescue does not look imminent.
Concerns are mounting over whether Cox & Kings is next on the chopping block following Thomas Cook Group’s demise earlier this week.
The India-based tour operator shuttered its Australian/New Zealand operations last week and received a vote of no confidence from Virtuoso after it cut ties to Cox & Kings in the U.S. and Dubai citing “continuing financial problems with the operator’s affiliate in India.”
The Australian/New Zealand business — Tempo Holidays and Bentours — announced on September 19 that it was closing following advice from parent Cox & Kings India that its negotiations with “investors/buyers with heavy interest” had failed to materialize.
Tempo and Bentours had been wholesalers within Australia and New Zealand for more than 30 years. Tempo prided itself as “tailor-made specialists” offering a huge range of hotels, villas, walking/cycling holidays, coach tours, and cruises, while Bentours specialized in tours to Scandinavia, Nordics, Baltics, and Russia.
Around 90 staff members in Australia and New Zealand lost their jobs.
The closure of the Australian/New Zealand operations followed the shutdown in August of Cox & Kings’ outfit in the UK, the Malvern Group, which operated LateRooms.com and Super Break, as the company began stripping off assets to pay off debts and stay afloat.
Cox & Kings is grappling with a debt load of $500
