‘Palmira tour’ asked to pay in advance

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   On the 27th of December about ten agencies and individuals who bought tickets and tours to Egypt from ‘Palmira tour’ contacted ‘BANKO’. They were not only from Moscow but also from the neighboring towns such as Kaluga and Vladimir. Everybody was in the similar situation: they paid for tours from $400 to $6000, on Tuesday they phoned to the office to know about issuing of documents but nobody took phone calls. One of the tourists who was going to celebrate New Year with friends in Egypt and bought a tour from ‘Palmira tour’ said to a ‘BANKO’ correspondent that the operator had recommended ‘to pay as soon as possible’.
    ‘BANKO’ discovered that specialists became suspicious at least a few days before as the operator easily confirmed all the requests for hard-to-find New Year tours. ‘Agencies’ requests were confirmed very quickly that is unusual’, said ‘Tours.ru’. Its employees contacted ‘Palmira-tour’ for explanations. They referred to ‘good contracts with airline carries and in-country partners’. However, there was information behind the scenes that the operator didn’t have any prepaid blocks on the flights starting from December 25th. Having known this ‘Tours.ru’ stopped booking tours through ‘Palmira-tours’. But some agencies bought tours from the operator much earlier. There was also an information that director of one of the agencies not having any offers from ‘Palmira-tour’ in the booking system went to the office of the operator to negotiate with Elena Saribetyan, company’s director. But managers said she was going to be in the office the next day, 27th of December that obviously did not happen.
    It is curious to know that ‘Palmira-tour’ officially existed from 1998, yet it started its active work on the market only in the recent 2-3 years. The firm tried to increase the interest to its activity by provocative offers. The operator was promoting special tours for women to Egypt, including services of personal footboy, ‘men’s’ tour programs to Thailand, gay and lesbian tours. Active sale of standard tour packages started only this autumn.
   BANKO keeps watching and reporting on development of events.