UPDATE 3: Natalie Tours annuls tours, to decide on future steps Wed

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MOSCOW, Jul 4 (PRIME) -- Panorama Tour, the legal entity running the activities of Russian tour operator Natalie Tours, is annulling tours from Wednesday through September 30, the company said in a statement.

CEO of Natalie Tours Vladimir Vorobyov told radio Echo of Moscow that the company will decide on future steps later on Wednesday.

“There is now a problem that due to negative information, we were unable to fulfill our liabilities to our partners for the last several days and they disable services for Natalie Tours in large-scale steps. We see no other scenario than to start to annul the services that we earlier confirmed,” Vorobyov said.

The company did not provide details on compensation in the statement.

Head of the Federal Agency for Tourism Oleg Safonov said that the total amount of financial security at Natalie Tours is 156.4 million rubles. Russia’s tourist security association Turpomoshch has funds exceeding 1 billion rubles and that the liability of all Russian tour operators is insured for a total of 22 billion rubles, which, according to Safonov, is a sufficient amount of financial guarantees.

Director of Turpomoshch Alexander Osaulenko said that all clients of Natalie Tours who are abroad have return tickets and have not asked the association for aid.

Safonov said that there is no systemic crisis in the tour industry.

A representative of the consulate general in Turkey told PRIME that clients of Natalie Tours say that owners of hotels threaten to kick them out if they refuse to pay for the rest of their stays. The diplomatic mission is working to prevent expulsion of Russian tourists from hotels, he said.

(63.2194 rubles – U.S. $1)

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