Viajes Marsans

Viajes Marsans was a major Spanish travel agency that sold vacation packages. It was part of the Marsans Group and had branches in several countries in Europe and the Americas. In June 2013, a Madrid court found company owner Gerardo Díaz Ferrán guilty in connection with the company's bankruptcy case.

Viajes Marsans was founded in 1910 in Barcelona by José Marsans y Rof, under the business name Viajes Marsansrof. At first, the company organized trips for foreign tourists visiting Spain. Starting in 1913, it also began organizing trips for Spaniards traveling abroad, especially to Paris and Switzerland. In 1928, the travel agency became independent from the banking group it had been linked to, and Francisco de Asís Ripoll Fortuño became its first president. After the Spanish Civil War, during the dictatorship's policy of self-sufficiency, Marsans focused mainly on trips within Spain. In 1953, the Marsans family took back control of the company through Enrique Marsans Comas, the founder's grandson. However, eleven years later, Viajes Marsans was sold to the Spanish government and became a public company under the Instituto Nacional de Industria. It did not return to private hands until 1985, when it was bought for a symbolic price by Gerardo Díaz Ferrán and Gonzalo Pascual.^[1]

In January 2010, Argentina's government opened a case against Viajes Marsans (led by Pascual, with Díaz Ferrán as co-owner) for writing bad checks and for not paying its employees for more than three months. This was an early step toward the company being placed under judicial control. In Spain, the company's financial troubles grew worse after Air Comet — an airline owned by the Marsans Group — went bankrupt in December 2009. Because of this, tourism companies began demanding payment in advance from Viajes Marsans for any business deal, instead of allowing late payments as before. The final blow came in April 2010, when IATA, the organization that manages flight bookings, canceled the tour operator's license to book flights. This brought all of Viajes Marsans's activity in Spain to a stop, and its website was taken offline. Later, the bankrupt Marsans Group was sold to Posibilitum, a group known for buying failing companies, breaking them apart, and selling off their most valuable pieces for profit.^[2]

In June 2010, Spanish judge Ana María Gallego declared Viajes Marsans bankrupt and appointed Edorta Etxarandio, along with economists Rafael Martín Rueda and Pedro Tortosa, as bankruptcy administrators. She later added lawyer Antonia Magdaleno to the team, who was also handling the bankruptcy cases of real estate companies Martinsa-Fadesa, Llanera, and Urazca.^[3]

In October 2010, the judge removed Posibilitum's owners from managing the finances of the five Marsans Group companies in bankruptcy, after they refused to cooperate with the administrators. In November 2010, the judge approved another request from the administrators and ordered that enough property belonging to Díaz Ferrán, Gonzalo Pascual, and Posibilitum be seized to cover Viajes Marsans's debts — which administrators said were more than 417 million euros in their first report.^[4]

In December 2012, the judge ordered Gerardo Díaz Ferrán and Ángel del Cabo to be jailed for misusing company assets, with bail set at 30 million euros and 50 million euros respectively. They are currently held at Soto del Real prison in Madrid. In June 2013, a Madrid court found Díaz Ferrán guilty in the Viajes Marsans bankruptcy case. In 2015, Ángel del Cabo was found guilty of stripping Viajes Marsans of its value to avoid paying the company's creditors.^[5]

In 2024, the Viajes Marsans brand was bought back and registered again, with plans to relaunch it in the tourism industry. This was done by José Miguel Jiménez González, who bought the rights to the brand and created a plan to modernize it for today's travel trends.

The new Viajes Marsans is focusing on digital tools, new travel services, and growth through a licensing model. The brand is now building partnerships with tour operators, airlines, and booking platforms to win back its place in the market.^[6]

The relaunch aims to keep the historic legacy of Viajes Marsans alive, while combining its well-known name with new technology and more personalized travel services.

1. ↑ "Viajes Marsans, 100 años de historia penden de un hilo - Expansión.com". www.expansion.com. Retrieved 2026-08-07.
2. ↑ marga. "EXCLUSIVA PREF.COM // "Los compradores de Viajes Marsans integran una trama de estafadores"". www.preferente.com (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on 2010-09-12. Retrieved 2026-08-07.
3. ↑ marga. "Viajes Marsans entra oficialmente en concurso de acreedores". www.preferente.com (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on 2010-07-30. Retrieved 2026-08-07.
4. ↑ Raul. "EXCLUSIVA // Las propiedades de Díaz Ferrán y Gonzalo Pascual que no aparecen en el auto de la jueza". www.preferente.com (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on 2011-01-23. Retrieved 2026-08-07.
5. ↑ "Inicio - España". EFE Noticias (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-08-07.
6. ↑ Barbadillo, Carlos (2025-03-05). "Viajes Marsans regresa con una visión renovada y una estrategia firme en el sector turístico". Quefranquicia.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-08-07.