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Dear Friends,
After precisely two years of almost total paralysis in our trade, it is difficult to imagine a return to the “good old times” with sales booming, losses giving way to profits and a general state of optimism returning to our business and our lives,
During these two years, Queensberry has been in the news in a variety of medias here in Brazil and I dare say that some of you may have received copies of some of these items.
I would like to explain briefly what has happened – especially the very happy outcome.
Like many others in the trade, Queensberry was dramatically affected by the totally unexpected Pandemic in February 2000 and we found ourselves choosing to seek “judicial recuperation” – equivalent to “Chapter 11” in the USA. This option is rarely chosen in Brazil – indeed, in our trade, it is seen as a kind of “kiss of death” as no Tour Operator until now has taken this choice and survived.
In September 2021, after a lengthy legal procedure, the vast majority of our creditors (principally clients who had partially pre-paid for holidays in the “high season”) (April-October, 2020) agreed to accept repayment of 100% of their money by way of discounts on future holidays.
Just after this, we were approached by Marcelo Cohen, owner of Belvitur, the leading travel business in Belo Horizonte (our third largest city), to discuss the possibility of our becoming part of his new “ecossystem” Be Fly, a new group which already owns Belvitur and Flytour (the largest private travel business in Brazil). The sale of Queensberry to this new Group was finalized on 3rd February 2022 (two weeks ago).
Queensberry will continue to operate in the luxury travel market, now with substantial financial and technological backing to increase the scale of our business. We have already recontracted 24 of the excellent professionals we found ourselves forced to release back in May 2020.
By a happy coincidence, all these negotiations were finalized just as most of the travel restictions are being eased and/or terminated !
There are plans to relocate all the Be Fly Companies to a new office building and our address and bank details may well change within about 3 months. Of course, we will send full details well in advance.
Counting on you all to help us with excellent prices and, above all, very rapid responses to all our requests,
Yours sincerely
Martin Jensen
Managing Director
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