Dozens of travelers have taken to social media about online travel company, BookIt.com, with complaints that they’ve reportedly gone out of business & left them high and dry.
The Panama City Beach company specializes in booking resort destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and the United States. Unfortunately, they were one of the many companies negatively affected by the coronavirus’ impact on the travel industry.
On Tuesday, BookIt reportedly laid off 80 employees. According to Panama City news source WECP-TV, mass cancellations due to coronavirus forced BookIt to go out of business.
Former staff allege the mass lay off came without warning and they were not offered a severance.
The situation is even worse for travelers. Many of which booked their dream vacations months in advance, only to be left stranded because hotels and resorts have not been paid by the travel company.
According to the massive amount of angry customers, resorts are asking them to either pay up or face being put out.
Customers have made several attempts to reach BookIt by phone, but to no avail. They were either met with long wait times or later came to find the number was disconnected and the company had gone off the grid.
For customers who are fortunate enough to not be stranded in a foreign country, they have to deal with not being able to get a refund on trips they are no longer able to take.