11/08/2019 16:27

Turkish Alliance Against Dumping Prices

[IMG=19751-5512] Tense situation in the Turkish travel market resulted into unusual reaction of several tour operators. Thus, Olympic Tour offered several tour operating companies – in particular, Side Tour, Amerigo, Maxi Tours - to join forces ‘against dumping’. You may recall from earlier BANKO News Bulletins that the similar idea is at the moment realized by travel market players that specialize in the Sardinian destination (news/ 27.04). The Turkish Alliance, according to General Director of the Moscow Office of Olympic Tour, Alexander Papuzidi, will consist of tour operators mostly affected by drop in prices. In order to fight against this negative tendency the members of the Alliance must define the sphere of activities, select certain hotels and to announce a number of flights to the destination approved by other members. Besides, they must follow a certain price system – not less than $250 per tour per week. ‘We are not going to declare war against influential market players. And our pool will hardly have a serious impact on the travel market – we just intend to set an example of civilized business’, said Papuzidi. Meanwhile, potential members of the Turkish Alliance do not rush into making a decision. Thus, Yashar Erdogan, Managing Director of Maxi Tours: ‘we will be able to make further plans as soon as we prepare a program’. Rafet Chetinskaya, Executive Director of Amerigo, agreed: before making a decision we need to know the details of the cooperation’. Furthermore, other travel market players that specialize in the Turkish market are skeptical towards the initiative. On the one hand, they consider the idea to be perspective, but on the other hand, they doubt in can be realized. Gennadyi Kosarev, General Director of Fresh Travel, stated as follows: 'firstly, it is difficult to control each other even within one pool – who can know the real reason for low prices – may be a travel company has a considerable discount from the hotel as its old reliable partner’. However, Marina Mantula, General Director Deputy of Detour, pointed out that the outcome is to be seen – time will tell.