The collapse of travel agency AVG Travels has left more than 100 Australians with ruined holidays and growing fears that they will never recover the money they paid. The company's administrators have told many of those affected that it is extremely unlikely they will ever see their funds again. The Australian Travel Industry Association, the sector's peak body, has warned travellers that if a deal sounds too good to be true, it generally is.
The scale of the shortfall has alarmed those caught up in the failure. Administrators have indicated that the company had only around 83,000 dollars in realisable assets when it collapsed, a fraction of what would be needed to make customers whole. Compounding the problem, travel insurance generally does not cover insolvency, which means many of those affected have little protection to fall back on as they try to chase their money.
For some families the losses run into the tens of thousands of dollars. One group that had organised to travel to China next March and over Easter, made up of 45 family members, has now lost around 60,000 dollars. Their experience echoes that of many others who have come forward, describing trips that were paid for in advance but will now never go ahead, with refunds nowhere in sight.
Questions have also been raised about the company's standing within the industry. AVG Travels was not a member of the Australian Travel Industry Association, having had its membership suspended back in 2022 over both ethical and financial concerns. Membership of the peak body requires operators to remain financially viable, a benchmark the company evidently no longer met in the years before it went under.
The collapse has revived calls for stronger consumer protections across the travel sector. Some of those affected are pushing for the return of the old compensation schemes, in particular the Travel Compensation Fund. That fund operated in Australia for many years and was run by the federal government to protect travellers, but it was disbanded around a decade ago amid concerns about red tape and a wider deregulation of the industry.
Pressure is now building on the federal government to respond. A petition carrying 1,000 signatures is being prepared for federal politicians, calling for measures that would better shield travellers from similar collapses in future. The peak body has been asked for its view on whether such protections are genuinely needed, while affected customers are left waiting to learn whether any of their money can be salvaged.