More than 4,000 Moldovans (in October 2019 – March 2020) made payments in advance for vacations planned in Greece in the warm period of 2020. For these travellers, the Moldovan tour operators transferred over €1 million to Greek tourism service providers. Howsoever, the pandemic thwarted the plans. Services weren’t provided, but the money cannot be refunded for now.
In a news conference at IPN, the president of the National Association of Tourism Legal Agents Anna Colța said the pandemic seriously affected the tourism industry. Owing to the travel restrictions, the tour operators managed to work only for a month and a half with Greece, which is popular with Moldovans as a tourist destination. “The flow of tourists decreased significantly. Moreover, on June 17, 2020, the largest provider of tourism services in Greece that operated on Moldova’s market and had a share of about70%, Mouzenidis Travel Greece, announced the cessation of its operations and the interruption of servicing of tourists with already paid tour packages without refunding the advances. The problem hasn’t been solved yet,” she stated.
The tour operators are to refund the money for the non-provided tourism services until December 31 this year. But they cannot do this as the money was transferred to the provider in Greece. ANAT requested the authorities to extend the period until September 2022. The request was accepted, but the relevant bill was given only a first reading by Parliament.
“We were glad to find support in the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova following the public consultations we had on the parliamentary platform, as a result of which PAS MP Iulia Dascălu initiated a bill on the extension of the moratorium on Law No. 72 of 2020 until September 30, 2022. But we didn’t understand why the bill proposed by Missis Iulia Dascălu wasn’t given a second reading. The bill was approved of and was adopted by the votes of 68 MPs after being given a first reading. But it wasn’t proposed for the second reading,” stated Anna Colța.
According to her, if the legislative proposal is not adopted by December 31, the tour operators will have to work only for paying lawyers, court costs and delay penalties as they cannot refund the money at the current stage.
ANAT called upon President Maia Sandu, Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu and the parliamentary group of the Party of Action and Solidarity to support the tourism industry and to help it break the impasse so as to be able to reimburse clients for the non-provided services. Representatives of the National Association of Tourism Legal Agents of Moldova (ANAT) called on the authorities to convoke an extraordinary session of Parliament to give a second reading to the bill the extends the moratorium and that, according to them, is extremely necessary for consumers and for tourism agencies in the Republic of Moldova.
