Hotelplan Suisse closes 75 travel agencies

Hotelplan Suisse has closed 75 of its 86 travel agencies until the end of February. One of the reasons is the home office obligation decreed by the Federal Council, spokeswoman Bianca Gähweiler told the AWP agency, confirming a news from the Travelnews portal.

The decision has also been affected by the collapse of the travel business. Of the eleven branches that remain open, the only one in Italian-speaking Switzerland is that of Lugano. The closed branches will still remain reachable by phone, Gähweiler said.

The travel industry - and therefore also Hotelplan - has been hit hard by the crisis linked to the pandemic. At the tour operator, a subsidiary of the Migros group, all employees have been working part-time since April 2020. To reduce costs, the Hotelplan group - of which Hotelplan Suisse is a part - is also making massive staff cuts. Around 170 of the nearly 1,200 jobs in Switzerland have been closed and the company has closed 12 of its 98 branches.