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Lanta suspended operations. Financial guarantees should be enough for everyone

21:54, 9 февраля 2012

This week Lanta-tour Voyage Company intends to announce the cessation of its activity. The tour operator’s problems came to light on Friday night, January 27, when its tourists arriving to airports were refused to board their flights due to unpaid airfares. Various sources report some 230 people failing to depart for their holiday destinations. On January 28 the tour operator announced through its website that it “stops the sales of tours due to the failure to provide appropriate financing of the ordered services”.

 

As of January 28 2700 Lanta’s customers were abroad – said the company’s President Ms. Lyudmila Pouchkova. There are no problems with the tourists coming back home; all of them will be transferred according to the issued air tickets. Those who wish to return to Russia earlier are being offered vacant seats at no additional cost whatsoever. That has been already confirmed by Lanta’s two major air carriers – Aeroflot and Transaero.

 

The depth of sales of most tours appeared to be not too great. According to Lyudmila Pouchkova’s preliminary estimations, only 700 to 800 travel packages, departing before February 12, have been sold, 1000 at most. Some travel agents report few sales for up to May.

 

The extent of Lanta’s financial guarantee is 100 million roubles; the insurer is Ingosstrakh. The head of Magazin Goriaschikh Poutevok (Hot Tours Shop) Mr. Sergey Agafonov, told RATA-news that an average cost of a Lanta’s package tour, sold through his company, was around $1300 or 40 thousand roubles. That is to say that the financial guarantee will be enough to cover the damage done to those who won’t be able to actually depart for their already paid holidays.

 

And it is all painfully familiar: service providers lose their patience – failure to attract additional loans from a bank – the collapse. Aeroflot was the one to lose patience, Master-bank refused to provide funding. Whether we want it or not, we all recall the Capital Tour situation. Only Lanta doesn’t feed its partners with promises to “take off any minute now”, doesn’t collect chain letters supporting the offended company. However the tour operator has been receiving money from travel agents till the last moment. But by the Saturday evening of January 28, the company’s Facebook and Twitter accounts have been deleted and the website read that “the acceptance of money is suspended” and advised to “abstain from travel after January 27, 2012.

 

And again, just like it used to be with Capital Tour, foreign partners “attacked” Lanta’s tourists seeking to get money from them. They were taking advantage in every possible way – blackmail, threat, blocking hotel rooms, keeping hold of passports and personal belongings. The tourists were threatened with airfares cancellation, future Schengen problems and even physical punishment; and not only by hotels in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, but even by an inbound tour operator in Italy.

 

A bus, carrying a group of Russians on a sightseeing trip, came to a halt 45 km away from Rimini on the way to the last overnight of the tour. The guide announced that Lanta went bankrupt and the ground operator Gartour didn’t get the payment for the tourist services, so each passenger must immediately pay €250 or he or she won’t be accommodated at a hotel and taken to the airport tomorrow morning. Eventually the group was taken to the hotel, but only to meet a representative of the Italian company, claiming that all the return tickets would be cancelled and guaranteeing problems with Schengen visas in case they wouldn’t pay.

 

Luckily there was a journalist from Moscow onboard the bus, who decided to get in touch with RUTI. After thorough explanations about the illegality of Gartour’s behavior, the group made a decision not to stay at the hotel and the entire group took a public bus to Rimini airport. Some spent a night at the airport; some went to a nearby hotel. But nobody paid anything.

 

Unfortunately not all Russian tourists who suffer the “attacks” of foreign hoteliers have a choice. Many have to pay for their holidays for the second time. In this connection Rostouirsm released a letter, in which it drew attention of the heads of national tourist authorities, inbound operators and hotels to the facts of such severe violations of the tourists’ rights. Tourism ministries of respective countries received official letters as well. Besides that, Rostourism appealed to Secretary General of UNWTO Mr. Taleb Rifai, asking him to provide assistance in resolving the conflict situations concerning Russian tourists.

 

On Saturday, January 28 an emergency meeting, attended by Lyudmila Pouchkova, took place at Rostourism office in Moscow.

 

Yesterday a special representative of Rostourism, its Deputy Chairman Mr. Grigory Sarishvili departed to Thailand to deal with numerous violations of the right of Russian tourists.

 

Lanta-tour Voyage hot line - +7 495 786 68 00, 638 53 11.

At the company’s head office (Moscow, Krylatskie Kholmy str., 37) one can submit his claim, receive tourists’ passports from 11:00 to 18:00.

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