HLO mass cancellations

HELLOWORLD Travel Limited has advised domestic operators that it will undertake a bulk cancellation of international inbound bookings for travel dates through until 22 Dec 2022.

Helloworld GM Land Contracting Joe McCormack said the difficult decision was necessitated by the ongoing closures of Australian and New Zealand borders to international visitors for the foreseeable future.

“We have made this call on the basis that from a productivity point of view cancelling each booking individually would take a really long time given the reduced staff levels and we do not want to be holding onto space you could sell in the meantime,” he said.

The mass cancellation applies to bookings held by Helloworld’s inbound subsidiaries AOT, ATS and ETA, with McCormack saying the move “provides both of us a clearer and more realistic picture of what is on the books in terms of forward bookings, and in some cases will allow for some hopefully increased forward sales from our own domestic wholesale customers”.

He noted that Helloworld had been able to work with some State Tourism Organisations to deliver domestic campaigns “which have seen stronger results than we expected”.

“We will continue rolling out a variety of domestic offerings in the weeks and months ahead,” McCormack noted.

MEANWHILE Helloworld Travel also today announced the successful completion of the institutional component of its $50 million capital raising (TD yesterday), with the placement attracting strong demand and “several new institutional investors introduced to the Helloworld register”.

CEO Andrew Burnes said the strong demand “demonstrates the market’s positive view on the long term viability of the travel industry and their confidence in Helloworld Travel’s capacity to manage its way through the next 12-24 months as the world learns to cope with and eventually eliminate COVID-19”.