Personal experience: how tour operators adjust to the closure of borders with Turkey, Tanzania

To what extent are agents ready to help tourists, as the government severely punished them?

Julia Suntsova

The NI correspondent planned to go to Tanzania on an organized tour. Departure - April 14 at 23.35 minutes from Moscow, that is, 25 minutes before the closure of air borders.

The day after the statement of the Federal Tourism Agency on the suspension of air communications with Turkey and Tanzania, a real bacchanalia began in tourist organizations.

The responsibility for the trip is shared by two legal entities. A travel agent is a company that sells tours, it receives money directly from a tourist - in my case, it is United Reservation Center LLC, and a tour operator - in my case, it is the largest Pegasus Turistik in Russia. For those who pay for tours online, another intermediary comes into play - the so-called aggregator. In my case, this is also a Fly.ru service.

From the morning of April 13, everyone cut off the phones of the tour operator and it was extremely difficult to get through to him - both by the hotline and by the indicated usual numbers. I had to hang on the phone for half an hour and it did not always end in success.

The goal was simple - to find out what is the fate of tourists like me - those who were supposed to fly from Russia from April 12 to 14. The explanations of the Federal Tourism Agency said that only those tourists who are currently in Tanzania and Turkey will be "evacuated". Those who bought tours from April 15 to June 1 were recommended to agree with the tour operator to postpone the travel dates.

Closer to lunchtime, at the phone number indicated on the Pegasus Tourist website, I phoned Olga's manager.

As a result, during the conversation she quickly flew into a rage: "Why are you calling me and taking out my brain ?!" and complained that she had not slept until 5 in the morning today, and before hanging up, she said that she would only deal with those tourists who had booked tours in the offices. It was impossible not to be surprised at such a quality of communication with clients...

All day I called and wrote to the tour operator, travel agent, aggregator. Until the evening, they answered me: wait, information on further actions from the tour operator should come in the near future.

I tried to contact NordWind Airlines, which was supposed to make two charter flights Moscow-Tanzania, Tanzania-Moscow on April 14 and 25, respectively, on my tour. The air carrier was also unavailable by phone. But he answered on Facebook: all information on flights must be clarified at the place of purchase of the tour. In other words, to pay Pegasus for the flight, they fly to pick us up, if they don't pay, they won't fly.

By the way, the plane lands in Tanzania on April 15th. In tourist chats, many tourists expressed doubts: wouldn't we just ride there and back without leaving the airport?

Information from the tour operator was received only by the end of the working day. And then I was even more surprised.

"YOUR TOUR IS RELEVANT, THE DEPARTURE WILL BE TOMORROW", - answered the tour operator and travel agent. The verbal order of the official for the tour operator is not a sufficient basis for the curtailment of already sold tours.

And then, for some reason, with special irony, all yesterday's urgent wishes of the officials-speakers to refrain from flying to Turkey and Tanzania, all today's instructions of the Deputy Prime Minister “change direction”, “based on the analysis of epidemiological data” were recalled.

The representative of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Tanzania, in response to my letter, where I asked for advice, sent an extremely expressive answer in its laconism: "I highly recommend postponing the trip".

“We ask tour operators to provide tourists with maximum assistance”, - Rosturizm asked kindly.

In fact, it turns out that "Pegasus" wanted to sneeze at all the warnings of officials about Turkey and Tanzania, who were completely affected by the virus, and they ask me to "abstain" solely at their own expense. The tour operator does not want to reschedule the dates. A failure to appear on the flight on April 14 means the cancellation of the tour and the complete loss of all the money paid for it, the representatives of the tourism industry explained to me.

We must pay tribute, not all tour operators continued to bend their line. Coral Travel, for example, willingly rebooked tours for the next season and other destinations after June 1st today.

The main question that arises after receiving notifications from the tour operator in the style: "Fly, everything will be ok" - And who will arrive to pick us up on April 25, if charter flights are stopped during this period?

I haven’t received a concrete answer to this question so far and will hardly receive it tomorrow. “There is no such information yet,” “We can’t help anything else”, - say those who sold the tour to me. The absence of a clearly articulated answer about the return for me intuitively means one thing: we'll make a fool of you FOR SURE.

For the tourist business, specifically for "Pegas Turistika", as I understood, the main thing now is to preserve the basis for non-refund of money for tickets. To do this, you need to begin to provide a service at all costs . The plane will fly no matter what. And who will then pull tourists out of Africa - no matter. It does not matter that while waiting for export flights to Russia, tourists may expire the time of check-in at hotels, it does not matter that this wait can last for months and that tourists run out of money taken with them for a ten-day vacation, it does not even matter that tickets for export »Flights, which the Foreign Ministry will then flaunt, will cost 150 thousand rubles each (without any offset for already paid return charters). At the same time, someone from the same department will broadcast with malicious rhetoric: "And we warned ..." But this was exactly the case with Russian tourists who were stuck six months ago in India, Oceania, in various other "bear" corners of the planet, where the news of closing borders. There were almost no real assistants then. Maybe, of course, we will be lucky this time, but we do not know for sure.

By the way, while still on the shore, the Association "Tourist Assistance" no longer can be reached - today the "prompt assistance to tourists" specified in the tourist contracts of the offer did not pick up the phone.

I tried to write a pre-trial claim with a request to postpone the travel dates. But I understand that my chances in court tend to zero. But just in case, I sent a claim by "Russian Post" to the travel agent and tour operator.

A whole story happened with finding a tour operator. To file a pre-trial claim, it would be good to know the full name of the legal entity and its exact legal address, otherwise there is nothing to write on the envelope.

It turned out that in the offer contract for the provision of travel services, three tour operators are indicated: Pegasus SPb LLC, Eli Tour LLC, Windou Tour LLC and another organization that provided the tour operator with financial support: ERV Tourist Insurance JSC, at that time there should only be one tour operator. How to hit the bull's eye? All day I asked the travel agent of OTSB LLC to reveal the "secret", but they only coquettishly persuaded me to wait for written explanations. In which they wrote - "there is only one tour operator, but he has several legal entities" (what?) On the tenth attempt to play lexical football, I lost my patience and turned on the "Chupacabra" negotiation mode. Only then I was very quickly switched, finally, to an adequate guy who replied: “The tour operator at your request is Pegas St. Petersburg LLC. All the remaining legal entities are included in the offer, apparently for beauty or for confusion.

The only bright impression is Rospotrebnadzor. Against the background of everyone who had to call to get at least some meaningful information on the current situation, this department responded most competently. They helped to throw a "skeleton" of the pre-trial claim, explained that it should be sent to two addresses - a tour operator and a travel agent. They promised to participate in the trial on my side, in case I decide to apply there. But they admitted honestly: according to the experience of last year's courts, the chances of success are 50 to 50.

Towards evening, Rosturizm released new information. You read and think - they seem to have given hope - they will return it as planned. But you are still waiting for some kind of catch, mainly due to the fact that the very concept of "export flight" is not fully understood. Judge for yourself:

“Federal Agency for Tourism in connection with the temporary suspension of aviation communications with the Republic of Turkey and the United Republic of Tanzania from 00 h. 00 min. 04/15/2021 until 23 h. 59 min. 06/01/2021 informs about the following.

These restrictions apply to all flights, except for export flights (Turkey and Tanzania) and two regular flights per week on a reciprocal basis between Moscow and Istanbul (the flight schedule is being specified).

For organized tourists in Turkey and Tanzania:

Return flights are supposed to be scheduled according to the dates of the end of the tour, while in some cases the dates of return flights may be changed to earlier dates. We recommend that you follow the information about the return flight from the attached guides and on the website of the tour operator who organized the trip. "

“It is not a charter flight that will fly for you, but an export flight (the same usual return charter flight, well, you just have to report nicely). Last year, all package tourists from all closed countries were taken out on such flights free of charge and without any problems. Either request a postponement of the tour for the next season (from October 1, 2021 or later), perhaps the tour operator will go to a meeting - but this is at his mercy. If you refuse to fly, the money will not be returned (no show for the flight is equal to cancellation of the tour). Or you will sue for years for minimum compensation. The recommendations of Rospotrebnadzor not to leave the country are still valid. And buying a tour to an "open and then closed" country - at the risk of tourists. Alas, "- comments the representative of the tourist business Andrei Popov.

A few hours remain before the flight to Tanzania. Don't throw a coin at least: an eagle - to fly into the wild African unknown, tails - to lose all the money for the tour. In the seething tour chats, the tourists were divided into two camps. The first camp is trying to cancel tours, so far mostly unsuccessful. The second camp, more numerous, chooses a simple Russian maybe - that is, to fly.