Genesis Adoration is closing its doors this week after more than 25 years in business. The Sussex-based agency will be put into voluntary liquidation due to the trade show services and business travel arms of the company under-performing.

Paul Bowie – who joined as managing director last summer and has previously held director roles at W&O Events and Eclipse Conference Management – said the business would officially be put into voluntary liquidation on 3 February by himself and fellow shareholder Richard Heywood.

He said: "The business was made up of three different offerings – the trade show services business, the business travel agency and the events side. With trade shows and business travel, the market had changed dramatically and the business was not coming in and this had a big effect on the whole business. There really is not that much space for small business travel agents, and the trade shows had really dropped off over the past three years."

Bowie – who is the largest creditor after investing in the company himself – said he had been able to shut down the business travel side smoothly so that no clients were impacted. He pointed out that the company's events arm was doing “as well as most UK-based event agencies were doing”, but given the losses in other areas sadly the company had been forced to close.

The last full set of accounts filed at Companies House for the year ending 31 May 2010 showed turnover down 17 per cent to £2.8m compared to the previous year's turnover of £3.4m.

Genesis Adoration was formed out of a merger between Genesis Motivation and The Adoration Group five years ago. On the events side, its main clients were in pharmaceutical, healthcare, media, IT and property. It employed a total of 10 employees, a number of which have already found new roles, according to Bowie.

This news follows the announcement last week that another Sussex agency, The Business Travel Team (BTT), was closing down after 30 years in business. Looking at the agency landscape, Bowie said: “It is tough, but I think there definitely a place for smaller expert agencies, but it just needs to have focus."

Pictured: Paul Bowie