The head of Rosturizm: “Natalie Tours” deliberately pulls with payments
Head of the Federal Agency for Tourism Oleg Safonov commented on the situation with Natalie Tours, because of which thousands of Russians were deprived of their vacation.
At the moment, funds under no more than 20 contracts worth about 3.5 million rubles have been returned in full with a total amount of obligations of 1.5 billion rubles.
Rosturizm is dissatisfied with the fact that for almost two months, which have passed since the cancellation of tours, the management of the travel company did not take real actions to compensate its customers.
The head of the Federal Agency for Tourism is sure that the companies included in the Natalie Tours group are specifically dragging out the solution of the issue of paying compensation to tourists whose tours were canceled. It is obvious that lawyers of these companies deliberately exploit loopholes in the legislation.
On the topic of whether the tour operator will be excluded from the Federal Register after September 3, when amendments to the Law on the Basics of Tourist Activities in the Russian Federation come into force, Oleg Safonov said that then insurance payments will cover no more than 10% of the obligations assumed by the companies included in Natalie Tours. “This is an unacceptable ratio,” says the head of Rostourism. It is the result of the fact that many of Natalie Tours’ tourism operations have not been properly documented. Why is a separate question”.
The department believes that the exclusion of the tour operator from the register will not relieve difficulties, and, therefore, it is necessary to look for other ways to respect the rights of the company's customers.
Oleg Safonov believes that the introduction of an electronic ticket in 2019 will help to avoid such problems in the future, it will make the movement of funds from customers to tour operators transparent and will be able to demonstrate the real volume of sales.