Holiday abroad is as unpredictable as a Russian roulette
Few days ago 38 Bulgarian tourists were literally ditched in the Turkish resort of Marmaris by their tour operator. Our fellow citizens had to choose between leaving their hotels or pay their holiday again. This was so because the money they paid in advance was not transferred in the right account. The fuss was kicked up a week after this tour operator, which is one of the biggest ones in Bulgaria, left 88 Bulgarians in the Spanish resort Marbella. After the company went bankrupt tension in Bulgaria has risen significantly. This was not the first bankruptcy of a Bulgarian tour operator this year.
Experts are predicting that more companies from this sector will go bust. No one says for sure when and how this will happen. Meanwhile data from the Ministry of Economy and Tourism shows that more and more Bulgarians choose to spend their holiday abroad. This is proved by the national statistics according to which the number of Bulgarian people who went on holiday abroad has gone up by 50% this summer as compared to 2011. The Bulgarian tourist usually chooses cheaper charter flights and all inclusive packages and promotions. Competition among tour operators is severe as they are trying to offer the lowest price possible. It was the reason for the prices to go down so much. Internet sites for cheap sales have also contributed to these extremely low prices. Tour operators usually publish ridiculously cheap offers there but their main goal is to gain popularity through these sites. In order to attract customers most of them work for very small profits and often fail to pay their partners. As a result, the inter company debts have reached record highs. Companies which are threatened to go bankrupt are mainly the ones offering charter flights and holidays abroad. Airlines and hotels which rely mainly on the tour operators to find clientele are vulnerable as well. Unfortunately in most cases tourists are the ones who suffer the most in such situations.
Cases when people get stranded at the airport terminals for 8 hours or more are not rare. This is so because airlines often delay the transfer of funds for fuel to their suppliers. At the height of the summer season a group of Bulgarian tourists became hostage of a hotel in Greece. The furious owners of the Greek hotel kept their documents and their luggage as a bail. There are many other examples of failed travels of Bulgarian tourists abroad. Forecasts show that bankruptcies of companies in this sector are inevitable in future. As a matter of fact foreign tour operators also become insolvent. The problem is that there is no protective mechanism which could protect customers from the traps of the tour operators.
Despite the good tourist season and higher incomes companies continue to struggle for money. The situation is getting worse as the price of fuels and airport taxes are constantly rising. Practically many Bulgarian tour companies fail to pay the hotels, the bus lines and the airlines on time. And when a huge tour operator goes bankrupt many of its partners suffer as well. Unfortunately the Bulgarian tourist does not have enough information about the financial state of the tour companies and can not avoid such headache. People now can not relax and enjoy their holidays because many of them fear that their trip could fail.
The only way out of this situation is through changes in legislation and the creation of a deposit fund which can compensate the debts of the companies which go bust. Thus when hotels fail to collect their money directly from their partners they can rely on this fund to receive their money instead of making people pay their holiday twice or leave the hotel.
Text and photo: bnr.bg
(23.10.2012)