ABTA Chief Executive Mark Tanzer took a £6,000 pay cut last year – as the association lost £15.2m.

Annual accounts for the financial year to 30 June 2021 show Mr Tanzer earned £289,000 in gross salary and benefits, plus pension contributions of £26,000, bringing the total to £315,000.

In the previous year, his gross salary and benefits came to £295,000, plus £26,000 in pension contributions.

Other directors were paid a total of £418,000, which includes salaries, pension contributions and fees. The figure compares to £422,000 paid to ABTA directors the previous year.

In total, wages and salaries paid across the association’s 98 employees totalled £5.03m. Other costs, such as pension contributions of £440,000 took total staff costs to £6.2m. The number of employees dropped slightly, from 101.

ABTA’s overall Group loss of £15.2m compared to a profit of £408,000 the previous year. Of this, £12.7m came from insurance claims.  

The report said the loss ‘related mainly to one significant case of customer refund claims following the failure of an ABTA member exceeding the bond held by ABTA’ – referring to CMV parent South Quay Travel and Leisure, which ceased trading in July 2020.

Other figures show ABTA’s decision to allow a 50% discount on members’ subscriptions for the financial year 2020/21 cost it £3.3 million.

ABTA took out a £2m CBIL loan in July 2021. It sold its former offices on Newman Street in October 2021 for £19.6m and has paid off the loan.

The report says 149 members left the association and 22 new members joined, bringing the year-end membership number to 928, down from 1,055 in 2020.

ABTA said the reduction is due to members ceasing trading as a result of COVID, as well as continuing consolidation within the industry.

Pre-COVID, aggregate member turnover exceeded £40 billion. Based on current accounts submitted by ABTA members this is down to £18.6 billion, highlighting the initial COVID impact.

Twenty eight members failed financially during the period and ABTA received over 43,000 claims, of which it has paid almost £23.7m on 17,835 claims across the financial year.

Turnover dropped to £6.56m, down from £11.2m and total reserves fell to £19.6m from £20.3m.

Turnover from subscriptions halved from £6.81m to £3.25m

Earnings from events and conventions fell by a third, from £1.16m to £339,000, while turnover from ABTA Travelife, its sustainability certification programme, fell from £880,000 to £394,000.

ABTA halved the amount it paid to ABTA Lifeline, its charitable trust for those in the industry who have fallen upon hard times, from £26,738 in 2020 to £12,500.