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Over 150 clients of bankrupt Russian travel agency stay in Dominicana

MEXICO CITY, September 11. /ITAR-TASS/. Over 150 clients of Russia’s bankrupt Yuzhny Krest travel agency are now vacationing in the Dominican Republic, a Russian diplomat in that country said on Thursday.

About 30 Russian tourists have ended their tours and will fly back home by Transaero. “Most of the remaining tourists will not experience any problems with winding up their vacations within a week,” Zurab Peradze, head of the Russian Embassy’s office in the Punta Cana resort, told ITAR-TASS by telephone.

He said, however, that 20 Russian tourists had had problems with the administration of their hotel which had not been paid by the bankrupt travel agency.

Yuzny Krest stopped operation on September 10. It explained this by a dramatic decline in demand for travel services following the bankruptcy of several leading tourism companies in Russia.

Established in 1998, Yuzhny Krest Group is among Russia’s top ten tour operators. It operates through two companies: Yuzhny Krest Travel and Romanov Club Luxury Travel.

The former offers domestic and foreign travel services, and sells train and plane tickets, books hotels and accommodates foreigners in Russia. The latter organises premium foreign tours mainly in Greece, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Cuba, the United Arab Emirates, and Thailand.

Yuzhny Krest has offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok, Ivanovo, Kazan, Kemerovo, Perm, Surgut, Tyumen, Khabarovsk, Khanty-Mansiisk, Novosibirsk, Samara, Ufa, and Yalta.

Its business has been insured by RESO-Garantiya Company with 100 million rouble coverage until March 11, 2015.

In the summer of 2012, Yuzhny Krest’s owners announced plans to attract a foreign investor, Australian Meiln Bank, which could acquire up to a half of the business. But the deal was never concluded.

In 2013, Yuzny Krest Travel’s earnings were reported at 1.9 billion roubles and net income at 1.7 million roubles.