11/08/2019 16:59

‘Premier’ undermines trust – part 6

[IMG=18093-3536] ‘In recent years supply exceeded demand on Tunisian destination, so going out on the market was a rash decision. ‘Premier’ company is a new operator for Tunisia, so it was risky to cooperate with him,’ told Selchuk Bugay, ‘Touralliance’ general director, to BANKO reporters. Other market players hold to the same opinion. Some operators also remembered their own experience of cooperation with ‘Premier’ and classified it as negative. ‘We worked with this company only once, in the beginning of this summer season,’ relates Andrey Zorin, head of UAE department, ‘Russian Express’. ‘The operator booked tickets for a flight to Dubai with us, guaranteed payment, but we never saw the money. Since then we refused to work with ‘Premier’, though they asked us repeatedly.’ Mr. Serak, head of Al Halidia, accepting partner of the operator in UAE: ‘We haven’t worked with ‘Premier’ for 3 months now, for this company owes us a considerable sum of money.’ But he refused to name exact figure. It is significant that even players who didn’t suffer directly from the situation express negative view on the scandal around ‘Premier’. ‘These events echo in all the market. Now, for example, late document delivery became impossible – the clients lose trust,’ says Anna Podgornaya, sales director of ‘Pegas Touristic’. No wonder operators were so pessimistic about what happened: this is the third scandalous closing of a travel company this year. The first bankrupt was ‘Transshow’ company in the end of April 2005, and only several weeks ago the market was shaken by the fall of ‘Az tour’.