Online Travel Agency On the Beach Sees a Blessing and Curse From Thomas Cook's Demise
Skift Take
On the Beach's purchase of Classic Collection Holidays now looks like a strategic masterstroke in light of the collapse of Thomas Cook. Brick-and-mortar travel agents in the United Kingdom lost a holiday supplier, and the company has a ready-made alternative on offer.
For an online player like On the Beach, Thomas Cook's collapse was both good and bad.
On the one hand, it lost a supplier of flights to summer sun destinations — its core market — costing the company around $9.9 million (£7.7 million) mostly in customer refunds and reducing the number of airline seats available for package holidays.
But looking ahead to 2020 and beyond, it stands to benefit from the departure of one of the UK's biggest travel retailers, and, according to its full-year results announcement on Wednesday, it has an "unprecedented opportunity" to "take additiona
