You may have seen reports that Tourism Exchange Great Britain Limited (TXGB) has entered liquidation, alongside news that the VisitBritain Online Shop has closed.
It would be very easy to read those headlines and assume that the whole TXGB system is disappearing immediately. That is not the position as we currently understand it.
Brecon Beacons Tourism has been looking closely at what has happened, what remains operational and, most importantly, whether businesses need to take any action.
For the majority of our members, there is nothing you need to do.
For those members currently using TXGB, our advice is even simpler:
Keep everything in place and continue as normal unless you receive formal instructions telling you otherwise.
Tourism Exchange Great Britain Limited, the UK company that operated TXGB, entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation in July 2026. Companies House now records the company as being in liquidation.
However, that company and the underlying TXGB technology are not quite the same thing.
The Tourism Exchange platform was developed by technology company V3 Leisure, which continues to list Britain – branded TXGB – as one of the territories currently powered by its Tourism Exchange technology.
Visit Wales has also continued to describe TXGB as a platform connecting tourism businesses with multiple sales channels and, in its industry update of 13 August, issued an updated customer service contact for businesses and destinations using or interested in TXGB.
So, importantly, the liquidation of Tourism Exchange Great Britain Limited does not currently mean that the TXGB platform has been switched off.
We have seen no formal announcement of a date on which the TXGB platform will cease operating.
Our suggested course of action at the moment is:
There is currently no reason for an active TXGB user to rush to disconnect or migrate elsewhere.
Indeed, our own BBT TXGB distributor reports have continued to be generated throughout July and August, including after the company entered liquidation, providing further evidence that the underlying infrastructure remains operational.
This is a separate development.
Visit Wales advised the industry on 13 August that, following a strategic review, VisitBritain had concluded that its Online Shop was no longer sustainable to operate.
The VisitBritain Online Shop closed on 18 August 2026, although order fulfilment and customer service support for existing customers will continue until 30 October 2026.
The distinction matters because the VisitBritain Shop was one of the sales and distribution channels connected through TXGB. VisitBritain itself describes TXGB as providing the API connectivity and live availability which powered products sold through the Shop.
Closing the Shop therefore removes an important national and international route to market, but it does not, by itself, close TXGB.
Only a relatively small number of BBT members have actively used TXGB, and we know why.
Businesses have told us that the system could feel cumbersome, the user experience was not always particularly inspiring and customer support could be frustratingly slow.
Those are perfectly valid criticisms.
But there was another reason that BBT continued to take an interest in TXGB: the principle behind it mattered.
TXGB was designed as a central marketplace allowing tourism businesses to connect their availability and products to multiple sales channels from one place. Those channels included major online travel agents, but importantly they also included niche distributors and Welsh destination websites offering low or zero commission routes to market.
That matters in a tourism industry where smaller independent businesses can otherwise become increasingly dependent on large global platforms and the commissions they charge.
Competition, choice and viable routes to direct bookings matter – even when the technology used to deliver them isn't perfect.
We want to be particularly clear about this:
Tour Wales is not a replacement for TXGB.
Brecon Beacons Tourism was already working with Tour Wales before the TXGB liquidation, following discussions with Visit Wales about how we might test better ways of improving online discoverability and bookability for Welsh tourism businesses.
Visit Wales subsequently agreed to support a pilot using BBT members to test the approach in a real destination environment. The purpose has never been to promote one platform over another. It is to understand what genuinely helps tourism businesses become easier to find and easier to book, particularly smaller independent operators which can struggle with the increasingly complicated range of booking systems, websites and distribution channels available to them.
Tour Wales is developing primarily around direct bookings and direct relationships between visitors and tourism businesses. It can display live availability and business checkouts, provide booking options for businesses without suitable systems and offer website widgets and other ways of connecting visitors directly with providers.
Significantly, Tour Wales also currently offers a TXGB distribution option for businesses already connected to TXGB. The two are therefore capable of working alongside each other rather than one simply replacing the other.
Our pilot gives us an opportunity to see what works in practice, identify the barriers businesses encounter and feed that learning back into the wider conversations taking place about tourism distribution and booking in Wales.
For now, we will continue to monitor developments around TXGB with Visit Wales and the wider industry, while continuing the Tour Wales pilot with our members.
We are not recommending that members move away from TXGB simply because its former UK operating company has entered liquidation.
Equally, we will continue exploring other sensible, affordable routes that can improve direct bookings and reduce unnecessary dependence on high-commission intermediaries.
If the advice for existing TXGB users changes, we will contact affected members and update this page.
For now, the message is straightforward:
Already using TXGB? Keep using it and don't make changes until you are told otherwise.
Not using TXGB? There is no action required.
Using or interested in Tour Wales? Our pilot continues, and we will share more about the next stages shortly.
