"Polar Tour operated an extremely vicious microfinance pyramid scheme; it's not a tour operator, but a reseller. There are several other similar resellers on the market who will end up doing the same," says Aleksan Mkrtchyan, director of the Pink Elephant travel agency chain.
He added that the Polar Tour was not a significant player in the market outside Moscow.
"Polar Tour offered travel agents prices 1-2% lower than tour operators, and commissions 1-2% higher. However, ultimately, the benefit turned out to be a quasi-benefit," said A. Mkrtchyan.
Sergey Agafonov, CEO of the Last Minute Travel Store Network, also noted that he sees no future for companies like Polar Tour.
"I don't think such companies have any future; I've always found this model unviable. They resold tour operators' products to agents, and they bought them because it was 1-2% more profitable. We didn't work with them," he said.
On Thursday, tour operator Polar Tour announced it would no longer be fulfilling its subagency agreements effective June 15. The company advised partners to contact the tour operator directly to resolve payment or additional payment issues for bookings with departure dates on or after June 15.
As before reported According to I. Tyurin, the portal Interfax-Tourism, Polar Tour primarily collaborated with small agencies, often consisting of one person working from home. They couldn't work with large tour operators, as they didn't meet their requirements, and instead booked tours through an intermediary. Polar Tour itself was an agency, its legal entity listed in the agency registry posted on the Turpomoshch website. It also acted as an intermediary between other agencies and tour operators.
She added that due to the suspension of Polar Tour's operations, there will be no need to evacuate anyone from abroad, since if Polar hadn't fully transferred the tour operator's money for the tour, the tour operator wouldn't have sent the tourist anywhere. However, major tour operators there are about two thousand Partially paid and unpaid applications from legal entities of the Polar Tour group of companies: tourists can make an additional payment and go on vacation or receive a refund.
Source: tourism.interfax.ru