FTI Touristik GmbH, the parent company of FTI Group, Europe's third largest tour operator, has applied for the opening of insolvency proceedings at the Munich Local Court on Monday 3 June 2024, while only the tour operator brand fti touristik is directly affected by the bankruptcy application.
In the statement made by FTI, which stated that the relevant applications will be made for other group companies later, it was stated that after a long and complex investor process, in April 2024, a consortium led by the US financial investment firm Certares acquired 100 percent of the shares of FTI Group, Europe's third largest tour operator, from the existing shareholders for a symbolic 1 euro, and since then, despite the positive news, the booking figures have been well below expectations. It was also pointed out that as a result of the insistence of a large number of suppliers on payment in advance, the need for liquidity has increased, which can no longer be closed until the investor process is closed, and therefore the bankruptcy application has become necessary for legal reasons.
In the statement, it was emphasised that intensive efforts are being made to ensure that journeys that have already started can be completed as planned, and that journeys that have not yet started will no longer be possible or only partially possible as of Tuesday, 4 June 2024. In co-operation with the not yet appointed (interim) insolvency administrator, a concept for the continuous provision of information and operational implementation for affected passengers will be developed with the necessary measures in the coming days.
Sami Doyle, CEO of TMU Management – a data-driven insurance intermediary specializing in travel – comments:
''Very sad to see the news about FTI today but it was well known it had been under some pressure for a while now. The circumstances of its failure, despite recent investment, does raise some questions however. Mainly does it really serve suppliers to travel companies to place pressure on payment terms knowing that online travel agencies and tour operators will struggle to pass these terms onto their customers? Online travel agencies and tour operators rightly get criticism, but the vast pressures associated with managing the consumer and their monies gets overlooked. They get caught in the middle. Regulators should have stepped in to provide assurances and insurances should have been in place to cover the supply chain. Had this been so – and effectively communicated – today’s problem could have been completely avoidable.''
The FTI Group, the third largest tour operator in Europe with numerous brands and subsidiaries, includes FTI Touristik, as well as the short-term tour operator 5vorFlug, the car rental broker Drive FTI, the destination management company Meeting Point International, which operates in more than 40 locations worldwide, and the promotional products tour operator BigXtra. Under the hotel management company MP Hotels, the company brings together the hotel brands Labranda Hotels & Resorts and Design Plus Hotels, Kairaba Hotels & Resorts, Lemon & Soul Hotels, Club Sei and Managed by MP Hotels.
The TV travel shopping channel sonnenklar TV, a partner of the FTI Group, through which around 10,000 partner travel agencies sell their products throughout Germany, and the online B2B provider for accommodation Youtravel are also important sales channels. The consolidator FTI Ticketshop is responsible for the sale of scheduled airline tickets. In Austria, FTI Touristik is represented by a branch in Linz, while the Basel-based subsidiary FTI Touristik AG represents the tour operator in Switzerland. Seven service centres worldwide manage a large number of bookings for the FTI Group and external customers. Headquartered in Munich, the Group employs more than 11,000 people worldwide and generated consolidated sales of around EUR 4.1 billion in the financial year 2022/23.