Popular tour agency closed down?

SINGAPORE - Five Stars Tours, a local popular tour agency, has closed down, said posts on the Hardwarezone forum.

When The New Paper visited the branch at Golden Mile Complex at around 6pm yesterday, its shutters were down. There was no explanatory notice put up.

According to an employee of a convenience store nearby, the agency was open until about 3pm after police officers visited the premises.

Police said they had been informed that Five Stars Tours had ceased operations and that a report had been lodged, Channel NewsAsia reported.

At Golden Mile Complex, we met Madam Yong Peng, 67, a customer who had paid S$360 for tickets to Genting Highlands.

She said she heard rumours of the company "closing down" and had made her way there to see what was going on.

"I bought the tickets in November. My friend and I have already paid for the hotel rooms, so we can't cancel our trip.

"I really don't know what I'm going to do now," she said.

The branch at People's Park Centre was also closed when we visited it at about 7pm.

A worker at another travel agency in People's Park Complex also said Five Stars Tours had "closed down".

We called all of its seven branches and the head office - said to be open from 9am till 9pm on its website - from 5.30pm, but no one picked up.

Its Facebook page was taken down at about 5.30pm and its website could not be accessed from about 8.45pm.

A customer who wanted to be known only as Mr Lim, 77, told TNP outside Golden Mile Complex after disembarking from a Five Stars Tours coach that returned from Genting Highlands at about 6pm that the driver had told passengers they were the "last batch".

But another bus driver, who is based in Malaysia and declined to be named, said he was still in the dark.

"I don't know anything about the place closing. The office never contacted me or anything," he said.

Records from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority Singapore showed that Five Stars Tours was registered in 1990. According to the Five Stars Tours website, the company has more than 200 employees.

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