As many travel agencies face pressures around strong competition and a market that was slashed to primarily niche customers by the rise of technology, many honest companies with strong community roots have seen their profits drop to the point of having to shut down.
Others have been caught in webs of fraudulent activity that cast the entire industry in a bad light. In the winter of 2026, two travel agencies in the Canadian province of British Columbia were temporarily stripped of their license to operate. Regulators had received multiple complaints from customers who booked flight-hotel packages to various holiday destinations, only to discover that parts of their booking were invalid, and they could not reach the agency for refunds.
Investigators discovered that Aigoout Travel, one of the agencies that lost its operating license in January 2026, had not submitted any tax or financial documents since 2024.
Government agency bars Baldwins Travel owners from serving as directors
The latest instance of a travel agency to be caught in a protracted scam scandal is Baldwins Travel in the United Kingdom.
Repurchased by distressed-business private equity firm Inc & Co Group in 2021, the Kent County-based travel agency whose name dates back to 1891 was placed under court-ordered receivership in May 2025, reported Travel Weekly.
This came after new owners Scott Dylan, David Antrobus, and Jack Mason were each sentenced to 22 months in prison when the High Court in London found them in contempt of court for trying to move more than £14 million in assets abroad amid an investigation into “unauthorized borrowing.”
Related: Travel agency shuts down after losing license, all trips canceled
At the time it was shut down, Baldwins Travel operated 11 branches across the United Kingdom and advertised holiday packages to cities across Europe and other popular vacation destinations such as Las Vegas and Dubai.
The High Court ruling found that Dylan, Antrobus, and Mason channeled more than £13.9 million into companies that it would open and close, in a convoluted operation that left creditors short of over £52 million.
After the former directors failed to appeal their sentences, Baldwins Travel was also expelled from the Association of British Travel Agents Limited (ABTA) and ceased operations in April 2025, according to Travel Weekly.
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Baldwins Travel operated “little short of a scam,” investigator says
With Westgates Restructuring now appointed to oversee the company and any of its assets, Travel Weekly noted that Dylan and Antobus have now also been banned from serving as its directors for a respective 13 and 10 years by the British Insolvency Service.
Insolvency Service Chief Investigator Victoria Edgar called the operation that Baldwins Travel ran under the guise of selling holiday tours as “little short of a scam” that used the long-running Baldwins brand and name recognition to lure both lenders and customers.
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After being sentenced to 22 months in prison over the scheme, Dylan served his time and was released early in October 2025. Mason and Antrobus, meanwhile, have warrants for their arrests after fleeing the United Kingdom prior to the sentencing.
The ongoing liquidation proceedings are one part of the legal effort to recover at least some of the losses sustained by creditors.
