Adventure Tours and Outback Tour Services in voluntary administration

The pandemic has been blamed for the collapse of a leading tourism adventure business which has gone into voluntary administration.

A leading adventure business group whose companies have been active in the tourism industry for 30 years has gone into voluntary administration after failing to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Andrew Fielding and Shaun McKinnon have been appointed voluntary administrators to eight related companies that collectively conduct business under the trading names: Adventure Tours, Discovery Fraser Island, Dingo’s, Outback Tour Services and website Travel Global Marketplace.

Mr Fielding said the group has a “huge backlog of debt” which BDO had started investigating and there has been strong interest in the sale of some of the businesses.

“It’s business as usual though. We will still be conducting current and planned tours, across outback Australia and Fraser Island (K’gari), honouring deposits while we have discussions with various parties to purchase the business,” he said.

“A majority of the group’s employees have been retained to ensure the tours are delivered without interruption.”

The parent company Imperium Tourism Holdings is one of the businesses under voluntary administration and the head office is in Melbourne while most of the subsidiary tourism businesses operate out of Queensland.

Comment has been sought from Imperium managing director Andrew Cox. According to ASIC records, shareholders approved further funds for the business in March, 2020 during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The backpacker and adventure tourism sector is still recovering from the impact of the pandemic lockdowns.

Mr Fielding said the business was hit by the pandemic lockdowns which closed Australian and international borders.

“They have not been able to recover from the pandemic where they got knocked around from the closure of tourism,” he said.

“They’ve fought very hard and had a lot of support from government and a lot of support from financiers but can’t crawl out from under the hole.”

The group’s origins lie in the backpacker and adventure tourism market that had evolved over the past two decades to incorporate travel technology, accommodation, flights and tours.

The companies, formerly collectively known as the “website Travel Group”, were acquired by the privately-owned Imperium Group in July 2018.

Imperium acquired Adventure Tours Australia in 2019 from Intrepid Group as part of a plan to expand its adventure business.

Founded in the 1990s, ATA became part of Intrepid Group during the adventure company’s four-year partnership with German travel group TUI.

Originally published as Adventure Tours and Outback Tour Services in voluntary administration