In September last year, Russian tourists vacationing in Bulgaria were unwitting hostages of a very unpleasant situation. Due to the conflict between the large Bulgarian tour operator Alma-Tour-BG and the Bulgarian air carrier Bulgaria Air, several hundred Russian citizens have accumulated at the Burgas airport, awaiting departure to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The air carrier said that the tour operator "Alma-tur-BG" did not pay him the cost of flights to transport tourists in Bulgaria, and therefore he refused to operate the flights. A large group of Finnish tourists who refused to be taken to Helsinki found themselves in exactly the same unenviable position as the Russians.
The negotiations that began between the leaders of these two organizations have led nowhere. The air carrier, claiming that the tour operator had already owed him a large sum of money, refused to transport the stuck tourists "in advance", demanding an advance payment. The situation at the Burgas airport was heating up. Responsible officials of Rostourism and Russian diplomats in Bulgaria were forced to get involved in resolving this conflict. 180 people managed to be sent to Russia on an additional charter flight, 80 - on an airplane serving the top leadership of Bulgaria. Unfortunately, most of the stuck tourists had to get out of Bulgaria at their own expense, buying tickets from other airlines. And subsequently, they already in Russia needed to make efforts to compensate for these unforeseen losses.
Russian tour operators, to which the victims of the tourists made claims, in accordance with the current legislation, paid them money in a pre-trial manner. And only then they themselves filed lawsuits against the Alma-Tur-BG company, demanding the return of these amounts. In the same cases when tourists believed that they had suffered major moral damage (especially if they had to languish for a long time at the Burgas airport with young children), they filed civil claims in court, demanding compensation.
Such sad stories prompted the deputies of the State Duma to amend the Law on Tourism Activities. According to these changes, adopted at the beginning of this year, tour operators with an annual turnover of over 250 million rubles are required to provide additional financial guarantees to their clients so that such disputes can be quickly resolved. After all, tourists who have paid in advance for the entire volume of services should not become extreme in the conflicts between the tour operator and the carrier.
