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Tour operators warn that there will be mass bankruptcies of our companies as well
About 150,000 Bulgarians, who have prepaid in full or in part for their holidays in Greece for this summer, will almost certainly not be able to do so and will even have a problem recovering their money now. This became clear yesterday from a statement by the Greek tour operator Muzenidis Travel, which announced that it was extending until July 31 the period in which it could not make the already paid vacations. At the end of last week, the date was June 26.
About 70% of the holidays of Bulgarian citizens pass through Muzenidis Travel, as the company buys wholesale accommodation in hotels all over Greece and offers them to our tour operators. Dozens of Bulgarian agencies work with this company.
The Bulgarian representative office – “Muzenidis Travel Bulgaria” EOOD, has a compulsory insurance “Liability of the tour operator”, but it is worth BGN 70,000, which will not be enough to cover the damages of customers, especially since it has to pay for travel of 983 Bulgarians postponed since last summer, it became clear from the explanations of its owner Theodore Sevastidis. Only they are worth about 200 thousand levs.
“Every day we receive signals from our members that hotels in Greece refuse to accept Bulgarians with reservations made through Muzenidis. In order not to keep their customers on the street, colleagues are forced to pay them again at the hotel. However, the volumes are unbearable and such re-payment by the end of the season is absolutely impossible. It will lead to liquidity problems for a number of Bulgarian companies, “said Pavlina Ilieva, chairwoman of the Future for Tourism Association (OBT).
The problems with the lack of insurance with sufficient coverage began last summer, when due to the pandemic, insurers literally abandoned the tourism industry and began to take out policies only for the minimum amount required by law. Sevastidis himself said on Wednesday that last year he insisted to the insurer for a policy of the usual BGN 250,000, but was refused. When he told this to the caretaker Minister of Tourism Stella Baltova, she replied that even then she had to declare bankruptcy and start liquidating property in order to pay off.
Currently, the Greek partner, for example, has not declared bankruptcy, as he hopes to negotiate with the state for some help. Muzenidis is one of the largest tour operators in our southern neighbor and owns hotel chains throughout mainland Greece and the islands, a small airline and 400 buses and holds about half of the Russian market. The company’s problems began in March, when its owner Boris Muzenidis died.
“Problems with the insurance of tour operators will begin to arise with other companies, and at the same time we do not have a Guarantee Fund. But even if we had, it would not have helped with such a large-scale bankruptcy, the tour operators themselves would have to conclude a “Civil Liability”, otherwise they will start to explode one after another, “the former chairman of the Association of Bulgarian tour operators and travel agencies Dimitar Popov.
During the last large-scale amendment of the Tourism Act in 2016, the idea of the ministry was to make a Guarantee Fund with deductions from the profits of tour operators, from which to pay compensation for failed vacations in such cases. At the time, however, the industry found this expensive, and they insisted on compulsory insurance instead.
Meanwhile, two branch organizations in tourism – OBT and the Bulgarian Association of Travel Agencies (BATA), threatened to protest in front of the presidency next Tuesday. Their claim is that the government will urgently amend the rules to support tour operators, as they are now restrictive. They also demand that the next phase of support be launched as soon as possible, as the start of the acceptance of documents has been announced for July 5.
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