Tourism bosses in the island have been urged to get ’off the blocks’ quickly in a bid to replace the gap left by the demise of Europe’s largest coach tour operator.

Hardly a week went by during the spring, summer and autumn without the sights of a Shearings vehicle trundling along to island tourist spots, towns and villages.

A glance in the very last Shearings holiday brochure shows that under normal circumstances trips to the Isle of Man, billed as ’The Manxman’, ’The Magical Isle of Man’ and ’Railway Journeys of the Isle of Man’, would have been taking place at various points throughout the year.

David Thompson, director of Thompson Travel in Port Erin said the island’s tourist industry has taken another hit after Shearings Holidays collapsed into administration - thousands of bookings have been cancelled and around 2,500 jobs lost because of the failure of the company Specialist Leisure Group (SLG).

Shearings Holidays, based in Wigan, was founded in 1919 but was an amalgamation of companies dating back as far as 1903.

SLG owned several travel brands, including National Holidays, Wallace Arnold Travel and Bay Hotels.

Travel trade organisation ABTA said the coronavirus pandemic is the main reason for its failure, as it struggled to issue thousands of refunds while new bookings ground to a halt.

Mr Thompson told the Manx Independent: ’They were certainly one of the bigger operators for doing those kind of holidays and they appealed to a certain section of the community.’

He said the age profile of people who used Shearings was older and it was a ’valuable tour operator’ for the island.

He believes the Isle of Man must now ensure it makes contact with other tour operators in the UK.

He said: ’There will be people in our situation all over the UK as well who are going to be having the same conversation and it is all about how the Isle of Man attacks this.

’And basically we need to be straight out of the blocks. The island needs to be straight on the phone to these other tour operators today and say to them: ’’Look this has happened to Shearings - what are your plans? Are you going to expand what you do to the Isle of Man?’’

’There is a gap that will need filling.’

He added it would be ’prudent’ for government tourism bosses to be contacting the other companies now. They need to be speaking now about next year.

He said: ’There’s no point waiting till January.

’There is no doubt that the tourism department in the Department for Enterprise need to be contacting other coach tour firms.’

He believes they should ’up the ante’ to make sure other companies knew the Isle of Man was eager for their business.

’And maybe it might need incentivising. If you have Scarborough or the Lake District shouting then it is important to get across what the island has to offer.

’The opportunities are there to take, the Isle of Man is a great destination and it looks attractive and has a great deal to offer.’

Mr Thompson said Shearings coach holidays were traditionally busy early and late in the holiday season and this was good for the island’s economy.

’The people who came on these coach holidays enjoy things like having a stroll and looking at the sights, the shops and having a cup of coffee and a scone, that sort of thing.

SLG chief executive Richard Calvert said: ’This is a terribly sad day for employees, customers and commercial partners of the Specialist Leisure Group and its subsidiaries which have entered into administration.

’The effects of Covid-19 on our 117-year-old company and the wider travel industry have been devastating.’