BU Research Blog

All staff and students from the Faculty of Management were invited to a presentation on the very current topic of the collapse of Thomas Cook on Wednesday, 30 October 2019 given by guest speaker David Skillicorn from Prestige Holidays in Ringwood.

The collapse of Thomas Cook into Compulsory liquidation at around 02.00 am on Monday 23 September sent shock waves through the UK Tourism industry and left around 150,000 holiday makers stranded overseas with many other booked holidays now cancelled. The impacts from the collapse continue to develop as Hays Travel purchase the chain of around 550 Thomas Cook travel shops, whilst some destinations fear a significant hole being left in visitor numbers and hotel occupancy rates as a consequence of the Thomas Cook failure. David Skillicorn, Commercial Director of Prestige Holidays and former CEO of the Charter Airline Palmair has a wealth of experience in senior roles in the Tourism industry and used this experince to highlight, in his opinion, the underlying causes of the Thomas Cook collapse and offered his perspective on the implications of the collapse.

This meeting was organised by Derek Robbins from the Faculty of Management jointly with the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.