Extreme tourism

Over the past month, six travel agencies have been announced about the suspension of their activities at once. All of them now solve the issues of paying compensation with their insurance companies and take part of their tourists from abroad. In response to the closing of the offices, customers who ordered Tourputics rebelled - they are trying to return the documents and are stubbornly looking for the opportunity to compensate for the money spent. Polit.ru found out what this situation looks like on the streets of Moscow .

Recall that from July 16 the Neva travel agency ceased to activities. On July 25, in connection with the inability to fulfill obligations to tourists, the company Rosa Vetrov Mir suspended, and on July 30 - the St. Petersburg tour operator "Expo -Tur". Since August 2, the Labyrinth tour operator, which belonged to the ideal tour, also stopped the Labyrinth, which also suspended its activities. On August 5, the Intaer Group of Companies announced the insolvency. According to Rosturism, 11 thousand Russian tourists remained abroad, and about 150 million rubles will be required to transport home.

Wind Rose World

The passage to the “Winds Rosa of the Mir” blocks the checkpoint of the large office center located behind the fence in a dozen buildings. Looking quickly into the passport, the guard passes through the turnstile.

Wide office corridors, a number of empty tables, a illuminated logo. The secretary of the tour operator sighs deeply and points a finger towards the office so far as the director for marketing Lyubov Chuchvaeva. She and two of the ten remaining employees are dealing with the documentation for compensation payments, respond to calls. Other managers booked all the ordered tickets and transferred information to insurance companies - after they were fired at their own free will.

Travel agency "Rosa Wind World"

“Bone, grab it,” the love of a colleague turns quietly, he lifts the ringing pipe, and she tiredly puts her hand under her head. - We watch TV, news feeds, we monitor what happens to other tour operators, how people come to their office and demand something. Everything is quiet enough for us, they do not break to us, however, the revolutions of some other operators were much higher.

The marketing director is confident that 60 million rubles, for which the tour operator is insured, is enough to fully compensate for the costs of customers of the “wind roses”.

“We began to experience problems in the market since the beginning of summer,” says love. Her voice sometimes shakes - the first problem was the growth of the exchange rate for us, the second - the dumping in the market from large companies, the third - that we, in this regard, began to reduce the momentum in order to stay on the market. When we announced the suspension of our activities, there were about 130 of our customers abroad, up to the new year, 670 people were sold.

Lyubov Chuchvaeva assures that the closing of the office will occur only when the last client receives a full package of documents for submitting to one of the insurance companies.

The Russian Express tour operator also took part of the responsibility for the customers of the “Wind Roses” who ordered trips to Italy and France - the most popular areas. Without payment of insurance compensation, they are offered to go on a planned tour.

“We were very surprised that such a large operator as Intaer took off his sign,” says love. The phone rang - she picked up the phone and turns away in the chair.

Intaer

“Yes, she was just painted vandals,” the security guard “Intaer” explains with a cigarette, explains the removal of the signs. It stands in a typical rather for St. Petersburg, and not for Moscow, a four -story deck of yellow brick, in the masonry of which a bush is already sprouted. Behind the open wooden window frames you can see a stone staircase, the light does not burn.

Travel agency "Intaer"

“Yesterday, television came, looked at all the channels,” trying to hide pride, the second guard with the walkie -talkie addresses me. - You can even write the truth, but you still can’t inside, there are a lot of people there, all work, why interfere?

Every five minutes, people who clarify the same thing come to the entrance: whether the tour operator has stopped working here. Inside, such people are allowed only according to the list in the hands of a guard with a walkie -talkie. Yesterday and today, according to his estimates, about 100 people passed through the office - people were lined up in a live queue earlier, now the situation has calmed down. “Intaer” served only legal entities, therefore, there are either directors of small travel companies or couriers at the door.

“Today they issue passports, agency agreements and the tour operator notifications to the insurance company, insurance compensation will be paid within 30 days,” Ekaterina Samsonova, an employee of Globaltravel, says, “I advise people to pay attention to the Fingrance, here it is represented by the RESO -Garantia - this is a reliable operator and I do not worry, I don’t worry, I don’t worry, that we will pay us everything by law.

Now, abroad, this tour operator has about 500 people, the removal of which is provided by partner tourist companies and the Association of Tour Polar. About the same number of customers of this operator ordered vouchers for a later term and are still in Moscow.

“I decided to come and see what is happening here,” says Alexey Belov, a client of one of the small travel companies working through Intaer. - My family and I ordered a tour of Rhodes, and now we should either wait until the lords of the insurers reach us and they will return the money for a new trip to us (and no one will extend the vacation and my wife), or lay out a lot of money for another ticket for the same period. We saved on this trip, where do we get a new amount now?

Labyrinth

According to Rostourism, about 25 thousand of its customers were injured from the suspension of the activities of Monno Labyrin.

“The queues of people with numbers in their hands were blown away for a long time,” says the security guard at the company's office. -Now they come in sometimes, for documents, a person of 30-40 per day.

Photo: Profimedia.cz

Inside the office, a broken door was attached to the wall, a foreign journalist recorded the plot on the street on an empty porch. From the door, he released a middle -aged woman - a private entrepreneur, director of a tourist agency in the Kaluga region, who worked with a Labyrinth, Lyudmila Ershov.

-We have five contracts for future trips and three families are abroad. The next departure on August 8, then on August 12 and 15 regular flights. Families that entered into agreements for September and October have already collected documents to the insurance company and sent here either by Russian post, or they were given me to personally take it away, ”she says. - Not a single legal consultation employees of the Labyrinth did not deprive us of us, today we took the passports. Their civil liability is guaranteed by the VSK insurance company. Whether this money is enough - the question, in this case, the state will take up the matter.

Larisa is sure that the Labyrinth tourist company is no worse than the rest of the large tour operators, but fell under the distribution. In the top ten large tourist operators, everyone has loans - they should both live in hotels and flights. According to Ershova, she was not going to deliberately leave the market - her contributions were paid two years in advance, and the employees are still trying with all their might to export their customers from other countries.

Tourism market experts

The tourism business is now afraid that the situation will begin to develop in accordance with the principle of dominoes. But the suspension of the activities of several travel agencies does not mean that the market is close to serious shocks, such an opinion is expressed by the general director of the DSBW Turkish company Karen Goncharov. “This is a strong blow, but I think that the market will withstand it. As for the possibility of further bankruptcy, such events can occur in any other industry. ”

The Executive Director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia Maya Lomidze believes : “The market is going on. The strongest survives, this is natural selection. Competition, competition and competition again. The logical consequences of strict competition and the mass of circumstances that gathered together this year: recession, currency course, banking crisis. ”

Oleg Safonov, Oleg Safonov, does not exclude a greater fall in the tourism market and the closing of other tourism and the head of the Rostourism: “Due to the foreign policy situation, the growth of the exchange rate, the volumes of sales in the market decreased by about 20%. On the other hand, we see the unfair behavior of some market participants. In addition, a crisis of distrust is affected. Banks, insurance companies, foreign partners, and tourists begin to work differently with the tourist business. But I want to emphasize: those companies that honestly conduct business do not dump, have a serious margin of safety, survive. ”

Nevertheless, on August 7, the Investigative Committee of Russia announced the initiation of five criminal cases on the facts of illegal financial transactions conducted by travel agencies of Neva, the Rose of the Winds Mir, Labyrinth, Ideal Tour and Expo-Tour.

“The investigation believes that the owners of these companies, knowing about large unpaid accounts to their partners and not having the opportunity to pay off their debts from their funds, continued to collect money from citizens, selling them a ticket and misleading their customers regarding their intentions and real opportunities for the fulfillment of obligations to organize tourist trips,” said the official representative of the UK, Vladimir Markin.

Other tour operators surveyed by Polit.ru believe that there is no greater protection than the conclusion of contracts with reliable insurance companies. Only the independent formation of recreation can be protected from this situation - buying air tickets and hotel reservation - where absolutely everything will depend on the prudence and legal literacy of a tourist.