As soon as Madeleine went missing, Mark Warner sought to reassure parents, insisting the incident was a “one-off”.http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-holiday-firm-pulls-4915169
Madeleine McCann holiday firm pulls out of Portuguese resort where she vanished
Jan 03, 2015 21:00 By Matthew Drake
Mark Warner will no longer operate the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz on the Algarve where Maddie went missing in 2007
The holiday company at the centre of the Madeleine McCann case has quit the Portuguese resort where she vanished.
Mark Warner will no longer operate the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz on the Algarve.
The firm has been struggling to attract bookings there following the three-year-old’s abduction in 2007.
British holidaymakers shunned the complex as worldwide media coverage of the case raised safety concerns and profits dwindled.
A source said: “Mark Warner ended the deal recently after trying to make it work for a few years.
“Now people feel the resort will become deserted. It is a huge blow.
“At the moment the Ocean Club will be run by the trust that owns it. The Mark Warner deal was for them to take over and run it for a few years. Sadly, the year after they moved in tragedy struck.”
Madeleine went missing from her family’s holiday apartment at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz on 3 May 2007.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Grange, who are investigating her disappearance, flew out to the Algarve early last month to question witnesses.
They are keen to establish if there are any inconsistencies in statements.
The club has now been removed from Mark Warner’s website.
One local said: “This place has never been the same since Madeleine went missing. It is as if a cloud is hanging over the place the whole time.
“Now the British police keep returning and it rakes it all up again.”
Mark Warner took legal action five years ago against its insurers in a bid to recover lost earnings in the aftermath of the case. They filed the writ in the high court in 2009 seeking compensation from US insurance company AIG.
As soon as Madeleine went missing, Mark Warner sought to reassure parents, insisting the incident was a “one-off”.
David Hopkins, the managing director, said at the time: “Our security is terribly robust.” But a company spokesman acknowledged many parents would stay away until the investigation was over.
While some critics focused on security, others questioned why parents Gerry and Kate McCann had chosen not to use a babysitter and instead left their three children in an apartment at the resort while they had dinner nearby, checking them every 30 minutes.
A company spokesman said at the time: “It is a matter of public record that Mark Warner’s bookings to Portugal were affected by events.”
It is unclear how far the company’s profits were hit by the affair, but accounts showed that it made a loss of £2.8million in the year up to October 2007, on a turnover of £46million.
It said then: “The results for the year reflect the difficult trading conditions experienced by certain parts of the tour operating industry.”
Mark Warner built its reputation as a child-friendly holiday company popular with middle-class parents. The firm, founded in 1974, says on its website: “For over 30 years we have led the way in childcare and have kids’ clubs for all ages with free evening creche service.”
But it wasn't, was it? There were all those other holidaying children who had been assaulted in their beds - all those assaults that Gonzo's flying monkeys denied had ever happened.
And then we learned from the PJ themselves that they had had DNA from the assailant all along.
Let's not forget the rest of the bad publicity the Algarve has been getting as a holiday destination - tourists being mugged, etc. Or being blamed for their own deaths at the hands of muggers, as happened on a couple of occasions.
And all those headlines about the police raiding people playing bingo. And the hate-filled graffiti scribbled all over PDL.
Sadly, crime happens all over the world, but the Algarve seems to have the peculiar attitude that it's always the holidaymakers' fault if they are robbed, mugged or even murdered by muggers. It really isn't a good image,
