The three things that must be on the site
The baseline requirement is short and widely half-met: the ATOL holder’s name, their ATOL number, and the ATOL logo, clearly stated on publicity material — which expressly includes websites.
The half-met part is usually the number. A logo appears in the footer, often as an image with no alt text and no number beside it, and the holder’s registered name is nowhere on the page. A logo on its own is decoration; the number is the thing a cautious customer can check.
It is worth putting the number somewhere a customer can read and copy rather than inside an image, for the same reason: a figure nobody can select is a figure nobody will verify, which defeats the point of displaying it.
The wording is prescribed, not suggested
This is the part most often rewritten by somebody improving the copy, and it should not be.
Where all the services available are ATOL protected, the statement to include is: "All the flights and flight-inclusive holidays on this website are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. When you pay you will be supplied with an ATOL Certificate. Please ask for it and check to ensure that everything you booked (flights, hotels and other services) is listed on it."
Where some but not all of the services available are protected, a different prescribed statement applies. The difference matters because the risk being managed is a customer assuming protection covers a booking it does not.
That second case is the normal one for an independent agent selling a mix of packages, accommodation-only and flight-only arrangements. A site using the everything-is-protected wording while selling unprotected products is making a claim about the customer’s money that is not true.
Advertising a package price pulls the requirement with it
ATOL Standard Term 1.3 deals with advertising rather than with the site’s standing information, and it is the part that catches marketing pages.
It applies where an ATOL holder advertises to UK consumers and the advertisement references flight-inclusive packages — for example by referencing the price of one, or otherwise making specific reference to flight-inclusive packages. Where it applies, the holder must make reference to ATOL protection within the advertisement, in a manner proportionate to the format and space of the advertisement.
On a website that reaches further than the obvious places. A landing page built for a seasonal campaign, a social advert, a deals carousel on the homepage — each is an advertisement referencing a flight-inclusive package, and each therefore needs the protection reference within it rather than relying on the footer three screens below.
The proportionality wording is helpful rather than restrictive: the CAA’s position is that holders should be guided by how the advertisement presents the product and the brand, so a full paragraph is not demanded on a format with no room for it. What is not acceptable is omitting it because the footer carries it elsewhere.
Treating protection as a sales argument
Here is the commercial case for doing this well rather than minimally. A customer handing over several thousand pounds for something months away is making a trust decision, and the single most reassuring thing anyone can tell them is that their money is protected if the business fails.
The booking platforms an independent agent competes with cannot differentiate on that, because they say it too. What they cannot do is explain it. A page that sets out in plain language what is protected, what is not, what an ATOL Certificate is and what to do with it is content the platforms will not write and the customer genuinely wants.
And it belongs near the enquiry rather than only in the footer. The moment a customer is deciding to commit is the moment the reassurance is worth most.
It is one where a handful of high-value enquiries decided by trust is the whole game.
What to check on your own site
- Is your ATOL number on the site as selectable text, not only inside a logo image?
- Is the ATOL holder’s registered name shown, and does it match the licence?
- Does the prescribed statement appear, and is it the right one for what you actually sell?
- If you sell a mix of protected and unprotected products, is the distinction clear at the point a customer chooses between them, rather than only in a general disclaimer?
- Do your campaign landing pages and deals modules carry a reference to ATOL protection, or do they rely on the footer?
- If you are also an ABTA member or sell packages under the Package Travel Regulations, are those claims accurate and separately evidenced? They are different schemes and a customer reading a row of logos cannot tell which covers what.
That last point is worth stating plainly: a footer full of scheme badges tells a customer almost nothing. One sentence explaining which scheme covers which booking is worth all of them.
