{"id":133619,"date":"2019-10-10T11:18:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T10:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chrisw92.sg-host.com\/?p=133619"},"modified":"2020-03-11T15:32:06","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T15:32:06","slug":"hays-travel-thomas-cook-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realbusiness.co.uk\/hays-travel-thomas-cook-stores","title":{"rendered":"Will this couple run SME save the traditional travel agent sector?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When trans-national package holiday agent, Thomas Cook, collapsed last month, the press was awash with tales of misery and paralysis from as many as 150,000 UK customers<\/a> who were left stranded in various holiday locations.<\/p>\n

But, of course, it wasn’t only the defunct company’s customer base that was suffering from the event. It left as many as 9,000 of Thomas Cook’s UK employees<\/a> without jobs, as the legacy travel company collapsed around them like a house of cards.<\/p>\n[article id=”133465″ title=”The Thomas Cook collapse recap”]\n

There was no transition period, simply a swift rollercoaster drop from operation to non-existence perpetrated by a black hole of debt<\/a> that the company couldn’t ignore any longer.<\/p>\n

But then, almost as soon as we started despairing about the laid-off staff and how the abandoned Thomas Cook stores would add to our already bleak high street landscape, a husband-and-wife run (and an independent travel business to boot), have swept in to save both.<\/p>\n

Hays Travel: A ‘heart-warming’ SME story?<\/h2>\n
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