Making ATOL renewals less painful: practical insights from TTC and felloh

Over the past year, we have spoken with many finance and operations leaders across the travel sector who describe ATOL renewal preparation as increasingly demanding.

Regulatory expectations are part of the story. But in practice, much of the pressure comes from operational realities. As travel businesses grow, customer money flows become more complex. Payments move through multiple channels and protection structures. Booking, payment, and finance data often sit across systems that were never designed to work seamlessly together.

For years, many operators have successfully navigated renewal cycles using manual processes. Teams export reports, reconcile spreadsheets, and rely on the knowledge of a small number of experienced individuals to build a clear picture of the business’s position. This approach has often been “good enough”.

However, as transaction volumes increase and scrutiny deepens, those workarounds can start to show strain. Renewal preparation becomes time-consuming and stressful, particularly when information needs to be reconstructed under pressure.

It is also important to recognise that ATOL renewals are rarely just a conversation between a travel business and the regulator. Trustees, bond providers, insurers, accountants, and advisers often rely on the same underlying financial and operational data. When that information is fragmented or difficult to reconcile, the process can become slower and more challenging for everyone involved.

In many cases, the issue is not compliance intent or the choice of protection structure. It is the ability to clearly evidence what is happening to customer money in practice, from the initial booking deposit through to balance collection, refund activity, or final reconciliation before travel.

This is where payment data and system connectivity are becoming increasingly important.

The travel businesses that tend to navigate renewal cycles most smoothly are not always those with the simplest financial protection arrangements. More often, they are the ones able to access and align booking and payment information quickly and consistently. Rather than rebuilding the story each time questions arise, they already have a traceable view of how funds move through the organisation.

To explore this topic in more depth, we recently partnered with Travel Trade Consultancy, whose regulatory and advisory experience spans a wide range of ATOL holders, to produce a new practical industry guide:

A practical guide to getting your travel business ATOL ready

Bringing together TTC’s compliance perspective and our operational insight from working closely with travel finance teams, the guide looks at:

• why renewal preparation can feel more demanding than in the past
  
  
• what different stakeholders are really looking for when reviewing protection arrangements
  
  
• where applications typically become painful in practice
  
  
• how payment flows interact with protection structures throughout the booking lifecycle
  
  
• common blind spots across different travel business models
  
  
• how stronger data visibility and traceability can reduce manual effort and renewal pressure
  

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The aim is not to prescribe a single solution. Instead, it is to help travel businesses better understand how systems, processes, and financial protection structures need to evolve as they scale.

With ongoing discussion around ATOL reform and a broader industry shift towards greater transparency and evidence-based reporting, many operators are already reviewing how well their current setups will support future renewal cycles.

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With the March renewal cycle approaching for many ATOL holders, now is often the best time to sense-check how easily your business can access, align, and evidence the information required during an application or review process. Preparation tends to be far more effective when it happens outside the peak renewal window.

If you are currently reviewing your financial protection arrangements, payment processes, or data visibility, our teams at felloh and Travel Trade Consultancy are always happy to share practical perspectives based on what we are seeing across the sector.