An Oxfordshire rail travel company is to close after more than 30 years in business - because of competition from cheap flights and the Internet.

Chiltern Trains Holidays, based in Chinnor, was set up in 1976 by Tony Parkins, offering holidays by rail, mainly in Britain. Next year Mr Parkins, who is in his 50s, will be making his six staff redundant and closing down.

He said: "It's very sad. Basically, the over-riding factor is that the job of the traditional tour operator is not needed. Everyone wants to cut out the middleman.

"The type of holiday we run is environmentally better and we support local economies by using local hotels and coach companies. But at the end of the day, you can have two weeks in Greece instead. Life is not a bed of roses."

Mr Parkins contacted The Oxford Times after reading last week about an Oxford University report saying that the growing numbers of cheap air flights were incompatible with the Government's aim of slowing the rate of climate change.

He said some of his staff had been with the business for more than 15 years, and he had many local customers, some of whom had taken 12 or 15 holidays with the company.

He said: "Young people don't have the same degree of commitment. It's much easier for them to get on a plane and go somewhere nice and warm."

"We don't have any kind of 'call waiting' system. We offer old-fashioned customer service - a real person on the end of a telephone - but it comes at a price."

Despite a lot of "greenwash", he said Government policies supported air travel, not rail, and he had no compensation for the 2001 foot and mouth disease outbreak.

The final tour Mr Parkins will run next year will be to Scotland, using the spectacular West Highland railway line.

He has recently been forced to replace a ship journey from Shetland to the Faroe Isles with a flight because of changes to the ferry service.

"The ferries are seasonal and I didn't think people would appreciate a 2am start from Lerwick," he said.

*Administrators have sold troubled Burford-based travel firm Ian Mearns Holidays, which organised self-drive camping and caravan holidays in France, but went into administration last month, blaming changing habits among holidaymakers. Dutch rival Vacansoleil has bought the business as a going concern, but plans to close the Burford office, in Tannery Yard, off Witney Street, and move all operations to its UK headquarters in Beverley, Yorkshire.

Three full-timers and one part-timer have opted for redundancy. She said: "One staff member is still employed in Burford for the time being, and another is still employed in France."

She added 16 other people were employed by Ian Mearns Holidays in the summer, but their contracts had come to an end.

Vacansoleil offers travellers a choice of 300 campsites in 16 European countries.

Administrator Paul Masters, of corporate recovery firm DTE Leonard Curtis, said: "The company experienced trading difficulties as a result of changing trends in the travel sector.

"Holidaymakers increasingly prefer budget flights to car ferries and are travelling further afield, which has resulted in overcapacity in the French market."