加拿大新闻商业网/加国老牌旅游公司 Conquest Vacations今天突然在其网站发表声明，称即日起结束营业，由于该以多伦多为基地的旅游公司已经有37年历史，业界人士均觉颇为惋惜。
通过其它旅游公司预定该公司旅游套餐的顾客，如果使用现金或支票付款的请联系该公司指定旅游公司，这些公司会帮助顾客办理退款事宜。
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该公司的声明表示，由于市场饱和加上行业价格战日趋惨烈，还有信用卡手续费持续上升，种种原因导致该公司不胜负荷，难以继续经营。
Conquest Vacations out of business, cites price wars, credit crunch
CP TORONTO — Travel company Conquest Vacations Inc. has gone out of business, effective immediately, a victim of the global recession, as fewer Canadians plan sunshine vacations and buy travel packages.
The Toronto tour operator said Wednesday it regrets the problems caused to its customers by the move but the shutdown was necessary because of tour industry overcapacity and price wars that have made it difficult to make money.
The abrupt collapse of the privately owned company isn’t expected to strand Canadian travellers who are already on vacation and consumers who have booked flights and paid for them are expected to receive full refunds.
‘It appears from all the information . . . that this is an orderly wind down of the company,” said David McCaig, president of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies.
‘That means Conquest will be making sure that passengers at destinations will be brought back.”
The company, with offices in Toronto and Vancouver, was started by businessman Robbie Goldberg in 1972 and arranges vacations for about one million travellers a year to Britain, Europe, Florida, The Caribbean, the Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico, Central America and the United States.
It competes with Transat AT of Montreal, Sunwing and Sunquest vacation operators as well as the packaged travel businesses of WestJet Airlines and Air Canada, the country’s two dominant airlines.
It’s estimated Conquest accounts for about seven per cent of the packaged tour market and generates about $200 million in annual revenues.
Sunquest, a company owned by the Thomas Cook Group, said the company has expanded its call centre operations to handle the rising number of calls from Conquest customers and provide alternate travel arrangements for their trips.
“As a gesture of goodwill we are offering travellers, who are rebooking their vacations with Sunquest over the next 10 days, $100 off the lowest current Sunquest rates – with proof of their Conquest Vacations purchase,” said Michael Friisdahl, CEO of Thomas Cook Canada, the country’s second largest travel company.
Perhaps co-incidentally, the shutdown comes at the end of the Canadian winter travel season, which runs from mid-November to mid-April, so the next few months are expected to be leaner for the industry.
But Jill Wykes, Senior Vice-President of Operations with Thomas Cook Group, predicted travel volumes would remain solid despite the economic downturn. She pointed to low prices that would likely continue.
“For the consumer, they’re often stimulated by cheaper prices and travel,” she said in a telephone interview.
The demise of Conquest won’t make travellers wary of booking trips, Wykes added.
“There are good companies out there that consumers can book with with confidence, and (there’s) absolutely no need for concern,” she said.
McCaig said Conquest was impacted by overestimating the number of Canadian vacationers this year, but it also couldn’t successfully weather the highly competitive price wars.
“Conquest is a company that takes seats on other airlines, books them in advance and has to pay for them at a set price under contract,” he said.
‘That also means that if they had an empty seat, they also lost out on a (full) contract, because there’s a hotel that is not being filled as well – but that they had to pay for (it).”
Part of Conquest’s downfall lies in the way the travel industry is structured.
The company would have been estimating its early 2009 travel demands about a year ago, which meant that even if Conquest anticipated an economic slowdown, they probably didn’t see the recession deepening so quickly, McCaig added.
In the last six months, the Canadian economy has been battered by hundreds of thousands of job losses – especially in manufacturing, construction and resources – with hopes for recovery delayed until next year at best. With growing job insecurity, Canadian consumers have tightened their wallets and cut spending on vacations, cars, homes and other big-ticket items.
‘The Canadian economy was very good a year ago when all the airlines set how many planes they had and all their seats,” he said.
Since then, some airlines have begun reworking their operations, slashing the number of destinations they serve and reducing their overall flights to battle a slowdown in travellers.
However, travel operators have generally been locked into their contracts.
‘Conquest Vacations regrets the inconvenience caused to the passengers due to cessation of its operations,” the company said on its website.
On the Toronto Stock Exchange, a couple of Canadian airlines got a boost in their stock prices likely on the chance that Conquest’s collapse will mean more business for their travel operations.
Air Transat (TSX:TRZ.B) shares climbed two per cent to close at $9.30 while WestJet Airlines Ltd. (TSX:WJA) moved up nearly four per cent to $12.30.
However, the demise of a competitor from the market doesn’t necessarily mean surviving rivals will boost prices any time soon, suggested airline analyst Cameron Doerksen of Versant Partners Inc.
‘You put more supply on the market, combine it with lower demand and you’ve got a recipe for much lower prices,” he said from Montreal.
‘The tour operators all have to discount their prices to try to attract people to go down south.”
Conquest said customers who booked and paid for their vacations using cash or cheque through a travel agency should contact their respective agency to claim a refund.
Customers booked directly with Conquest will be contacted by the company and those who have used a credit card should contact their card company for a refund.
In a related matter, The Greater Toronto Airport Authority also warned travellers to take extra caution if they have booked flights with the Conquest.
‘We are advising passengers to verify the status of their flight with the airline on which they are flying,” said Scott Armstrong, a spokesman for the operator of Canada’s busiest airport.
In Toronto, Conquest only sells seats through other airline operators, such as WestJet, he said.
A spokesman for Westjet wrote in an email that Conquest customers who have tickets for their planes still have their flight reservations.
‘Conquest has booked seats for their guests on our aircraft in the past, but those are paid for,” he said.
Meanwhile, Halifax-based CanJet Airlines said all return flights through Conquest will operate on schedule, which means vacationers already on holiday should arrive back in Canada on their planned flight.
