Member Info for Beachbum1978

To me…it feels like the lull before the storm, I follow a lot of travel stock and they are all following the same patterns…seems there is tree shaking going on and the weak selling.

I’ve just been watching PMQ’s and BJ is adamant the country is opening up on the 19th. And bring it on!

We now learn to live with the disease and enjoy our Freedoms again. IMO DYOR ATB

You’d think an Ocean has just sang the way this share is acting….pathetic

Means they can now fill up, Spirit of the Rhine River Cruises

Rox, haha…thought you might have sent a note!

Well done on the Ironman! Sounds utterly horrendous:-)

Saga served me that well, I paid the CC off and ploughed a little in here. Own research done and been watching for a while. Currently living in Wakefield, so backing local too!

I’m refusing to say anything else now, because it always gets jinxed! But good news today from BJ. Seems a ride has turned.

See you at the champagne bar at £5.85.

I’m not big on chart patterns but noticed since Thursday a lovely ‘cup and handle’ forming on the 1 month chart. Hopefully got it right buying bottom of handle, may go to 0.62 before rise?

It only has ‘Fixed retail estate value’. Trading been swallowed up by our German rivals. Horrendous management, living in the 1990’s. Never ever in 30 years have I seen such a dysfunctional company. Poor WM must be turning in his grave. Run by Dinosaurs.

Such a shame for a local Yorkshire company.

I’ve just checked some other cruise shares and they have all followed the exact same pattern over the month.

Phenry- yes I know it is, we are discussing things that have happened since the beginning of the pandemic, now 16 months ago.

BB - fair play, I’ll take the deal. But something is not right here. No way in Hell is TOUR 7m cash burn. Cruise YES. Clever accountancy going on I feel, legal or not.

I’m 100% confident that Cruise Cash Burn has been put under ‘TOUR’ as in effect it is a holiday/tour related and nothing to do with insurance so keeping them seperate. If I’m wrong I’ll buy the first round at the get-together, but I’m not. Anyway, like I said I’m hanging around with Millionaire and the ladies at the bar :-)

https://travelweekly.co.uk/articles/375966/saga-reveals-44m-refund-payouts

Not forgetting of course the £4m they lost on the Thomas Cook failure, which would be built into the 2020 accounts?? I’m not sure??

Sorry BB just read your last 2 post while I was busy typing away. Both on same page, definitely, and need clarity on how much customers money they’ve spunked. IMO there can’t be much left now??

Thanks BB, good perspective. I think there is some very impressive Accountancy work going on here in my opinion. Purely from how a Tour Operator works, 7m a month, I’m just not having it, unless some form of Cruise is built in and/or clever accountancy. Absolutely no way!?!

Also - 60-70% of the customers who are SAGA loyal, simply changed there holiday dates and booked for next year, without asking for money back etc etc…so there’s another something to question.

P.S. There is a good majority of the over 50’s who book well in advance. But it has now been 15 months since the start of the pandemic. So there is no way I’m taking 7m cash burn on tour unless cruise is included?!

BB - I totally agree. Up until Oct 2020 they have basically spent customers money and deposits they had to give back, but weren’t expecting too. Que the pandemic. This must be still having long term effect.

Secondly - do you think they have put ‘Cruise Cash Burn’ under ‘TOUR’ for accounting reasons?

I think they need to explain all this. Because no ‘Tour Operator’ or large ‘Travel Agent’ in effect has that sort of cash burn. So something is a-miss?

Easiest way to explain it is -

You want to take the Mrs to London for the weekend.

You can’t be arsed putting an itinerary together, so you ask your mate who lives in London to do it for you. Book the transport, theatre tickets, excursions etc etc.

He says cool, all done for you. It cost him £500, but charges you £700 for the privilege. You know none the wiser, but he is then the ‘Tour Operator’ or ‘Ground Handler’. He has to put that £700 money aside, because if anything goes wrong and there is a terrorist bomb in London that weekend and you cannot fulfil the ‘Tour’ he promised. You want your money back. Your mate gets his money back from ATOL. Which is basically an insurance policy. But still has no fixed cost to pay.

Take that example an times by 1 million passengers for example.

ATOL - Everytime some books a TOUR. That money gets put into a ‘Trust Account’ to ring fence that money. So If anything goes wrong, the money is still there to return to the customer. Rather than the operator just squandering it. See article below. Tour shouldn’t cost anything

https://travelweekly.co.uk/articles/388902/saga-holidays-sets-up-caa-trust-account

Titan ‘TOUR’ has no fixed assets. They are not an airline and don’t own hotels.

They probably have 20-30 staff. Product, Marketing, Admin, Customer Service and Sales, like most other tour operators. Probably £1m a year in salaries.

Customer rings for a ‘tour’. Sales person books with a third party airline ‘BA’ for example. Then books the ‘tour’ with our ‘ground handling’ agent in that country, who puts the tour together and looks after the customer ‘in resort’ ‘that country’ We don’t own ground handlers, there just ‘in country tour guides effectively’ that we contract.

I get Tour is s**t…small margins and volatile to world events etc just as BB says and I agree, but this is not a huge cash burn whatsoever. Their essentially just a big travel agent, that is taking liability and putting the tours together yourself. Nothing more or less! This is what I don’t understand. No fixed assets to burn cash, other than maybe the Eicer Cruise boats, which wouldn’t be massive anyway in the grand scheme of things.