The head of Natalie Tours has decided to resume tour operator activities on the basis of the Soglasie Tourism Center, the only legal entity operating under the Natalie brand that remains in the unified federal register, Interfax-Tourism reports, citing to the press secretary of the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUTI) Irina Tyurina.
"The Soglasie Tourism Center was founded in late November 2017 and joined the Unified Federal Register of Tour Operators and the Tourpomoshch Association at the same time. It began operating in April under the New Travelers brand, advertising tailor-made tours for affluent tourists," she said.
It was previously reported that Soglasie was the only one of the four legal entities operating under the Natalie Tours brand that was not excluded from the unified federal register of tour operators by Rostourism on September 3. According to the system SPARK-Interfax, The founder at the time was Denis Yarov, and Dmitry Tolstik served as CEO. On September 12, the company's ownership changed—Ksenia Mostovskaya became the new owner. On Thursday, she told RBC that she had previously "lived abroad and was raising her child." According to K. Mostovskaya, the company will continue to focus on outbound tourism, and Vladimir Vorobyov will advise it during the first few months. The website newtravelers.ru is currently down.
As a reminder, V. Vorobyov previously stated that he planned to resume tour operator operations after October 1 and was seeking an investor. According to him, the required investment to begin operations is 700-800 million rubles.
"According to our market sources, the new owner of Soglasie, Ksenia Mostovskaya, is a friend of Vladimir Vorobyov's wife, and her husband is involved with a large chain of perfume and cosmetics stores. It is assumed that Vladimir Vorobyov will manage New Travelers, not consult. In other words, he will essentially be starting his business from scratch. It's highly doubtful that in such difficult times for the travel industry, anyone would agree to buy a travel company with huge debts and such a negative market image. I believe that only people who wanted to help the head of Natalie Tours could have done so," said I. Tyurina.
She recalled that V. Vorobyov had previously managed his own companies without formally having any connection to them. He was listed as a co-founder of only one of the four legal entities included in the federal register of tour operators—Natalie Travel Agency LLC, which served 1,802 tourists in 2017.
Interfax-Tourism contacted Vladimir Vorobyov for comment. He called the information about his business's relaunch "another fake."
On July 4, Natalie Tours announced the cancellation of all confirmed tours until September 30, covering approximately 12,000 contracts. The company's debt to tourists and partners amounts to approximately 1.5 billion rubles, and the total number of affected individuals is approaching 30,000. On September 3, Rostourism removed three of the four legal entities that sold tours under the Natalie Tours brand from the unified federal register of tour operators. These entities are Panorama Tour LLC, NATALIE Travel Agency LLC, and Natalie Tours Tour Operator LLC.
Each of the three companies had financial liability insurance with Ingosstrakh Insurance Company for 50 million rubles. The company stated it would pay compensation to the tourists. However, the vast majority of contracts with tourists were concluded on behalf of Panorama Tour LLC. This company's clients will not have enough of the 50 million rubles to cover the damages; the total compensation for each tour will be approximately 5,000 rubles.
Source: trn-news.ru