MOSCOW, October 17 (RIA Novosti) – The responsibility for travelers should be shared among all participants of the tourist market, the Russian Association of Tour Operators (ATOR) said in a statement Friday.
"In order to prevent crisis situations and to ensure the greatest protection of the rights of tourists, the Association of Tour Operators insists on the necessity of dividing responsibilities between all market participants," the statement published on the association's website reads.
In relation to a series of recent bankruptcies and investigations into the fraudulent activities of several travel companies in Moscow and St. Petersburg, ATOR sent a letter to Russia's Prosecutor General.
"The Association of Tour Operators sent a letter to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Yury Chaika, as well as to the prosecutors of Moscow and St. Petersburg, explaining the tour operators' mass tourism business mechanisms. The appeal was sent in relation to the arrests of the heads of the bankrupt travel companies in Moscow and St. Petersburg," the statement reads.
Since mid-summer more than a dozen Russian travel companies have suspended their activities. According to ATOR, this affected about 130,000 Russian citizens from July to September. About a dozen criminal cases related to the closures of tour operators have been opened.
