Southern Cross Travel went bankrupt

One of the largest travel agencies in Russia, the Southern Cross Travel, announced last night that they went bankrupt. 

On the website of the Southern Cross Travel there was the following message this morning.


IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR TOURISTS AND TRAVEL AGENCIES
Due to our inability to meet its obligations to the tourists and customers on contracts sale of the tourist LLC "Southern Cross Travel" is forced to announce the suspension of its activities. The suspension of activities is due to a strong decline in demand for tourism product on the background of the bankruptcy of a number of other largest tour operators.


According to info released by the president of the Association of Greek Tourist Enterprises, Andreas Andreadis, right now in Greece there are more than 3,600 Russian tourists who had traveled with Southern Cross Travel.

Mr. Andreadis said that this new incident highlights the urgency to create proper measures and policies in order to handle this crisis and facilitate the return of all the Southern Cross Travel Russian tourists back home.  

At the same time he said that the vicious cycle of bankruptcies of Russian travel agencies have not closed yet. Based on initial estimates, the Russian tourists that have moved during this period abroad by the Southern Cross Travel can reach 10,000 with the possibility to be a lot higher. 

The Association of Russian tour operators felt that many thousands of Russian tourists will see their forthcoming trips cancelled as they will not be able to fly abroad with Southern Cross Travel.  

The Russian agency attributed the bankruptcy to the sharp drop in tourism demand.  

The bankruptcy of the Southern Cross Travel comes after another major Russian Tour operator went bankrupt (Solvex Tour) 4 days ago, which left in Greece around 3000-4000 tourists.  

Already the Russian embassy in Greece has begun repatriating Russians tourists with flights departing or planned to depart from Heraklion, Rhodes, Zante, Kos, Corfu, Kavala and other Greek holiday resorts.


From 16th of July at least 13 major tour operator and travel agencies have gone banckrupt in Russia.

Southern Cross Travel website