With the last two decades bringing significant changes to how travelers book their travel, many agencies outside specific niches struggle to stay afloat in a challenging market.
Agencies that collapsed in bankruptcy over the last year include British firms Great Little Escapes and Jetline, Swedish travel company MixxTravel and French cruise operator Expedis Exploration.
In two separate cases in the Canadian province of British Columbia, what were presented to be travel agencies also ended up getting closed down by investigators after customer complaints of paying for invalid tickets and hotel bookings.
GoPlay Sports Tours shuts down in suspicious bankruptcy
The latest collapse that left travelers, including the entire men’s basketball team of the University of Dallas, stranded is the Boston-based GoPlay Sports Tours LLC.
Crusaders head coach Matt Grahn told a local outlet that the university made two payments of $30,000 USD to organize a sports tour including a two-game event in the United Kingdom. According to his account, the company accepted the money and shortly after announced that it was shutting down operations.
Related: Bankrupt agency owners banned from travel industry for 23 years
A portion of the funds handed over to the company was fundraised by the college team over the last two years.
“They put elbow grease into this thing and worked their tails off,” Grahn said to the Dallas branch of NBC. “And I think that’s why it hurts so bad.”
The team is now trying to fundraise or find a sponsor who will help them still make the trip in late May.
In a statement sent to customers, GoPlay wrote named the “ongoing situation in the Middle East” as the reason it will not accept future bookings as well as canceling existing tours.
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GoPlay says it “explored several options to avoid this outcome” as attorney general fields complaints
“Please know that GoPlay did not make this decision lightly and explored several options to avoid this outcome, including refinancing, raising new capital, and a potential sale of the business,” the statement reads. “Unfortunately, GoPlay has been unable to identify a way to continue operating.”
These travel companies went bankrupt in recent months:
- Great Little Escapes: The British travel company filed for bankruptcy after running up losses of £77,000 ($103,000 USD).
- Unitravel Kft: The Budapest-based tour operator blamed “new, foreign companies enter[ing] Hungary with huge financial resources” for a financial breakdown that led to it having to suddenly cancel trips that in some cases were already halfway through.
- MixxTravel: The Malmö-based travel company was forced to cancel trips and wind down operations after being declared bankrupt by a judge in August 2025.
- Tango Travel: The Icelandic tour operator went bust in November 2025 after major partner Play Airlines filed for bankruptcy and stopped operations a month earlier as many of the packages it sold included tickets from the defunct airline.
- New Era Travel: Ceased operations in November 2025: The Hampshire-based tour operator took British travelers to Spain, Australia, and Las Vegas, among other destinations.
The website for the company has been taken down while, together with the lack of an official bankruptcy filing and attempt to return the funds, the situation looks particularly suspicious.
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In a separate statement on the situation, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office said that it received more than 25 complaints about the business from other customers earlier this year.
In a similar situation in British Columbia, Arthur Leung gave more than $22,000 Canadian dollars ($16,044 USD) to a travel agency that was supposed to book a family trip to Japan but instead kept brushing off questions about a suspicious booking.
While Aigoutt Travel eventually had its operating license stripped by the local regulatory agency amid many similar complaints from other customers, Leung is still struggling to recover the money lost.
Related: International travel company shuts down in bankruptcy, travelers stranded
