Turkey orders hotels not to evict tourists following Thomas Cook's collapse

The Turkish Ministry of Tourism has said that hotels requiring tourist payment or evicting them due to the collapse of British tourism agency Thomas Cook will be indicted.

The Ministry said that there were currently 21,033 Thomas Cook customers in Turkey, and that their expenses would be covered by the UK Protection of Air Travel Organizer's License (ATOL).

The head of the Turkey Hoteliers Federation said on Monday that the British operator's collapse means that Turkey could see 600,000 to 700,000 fewer tourists annually.

Hotelier's union chairman, Osman Ayik, told Reuters news agency that Thomas Cook owed £ 100,000 to £ 200,000 ($ 124,000 ̵[ads1]1; $ 248,000) to some small hotels, which may suffer as a result of Monday's events.

The Ministry of Tourism said it would support local businesses affected by the bankruptcy.

"The Ministry of Tourism and Finance is working on a" credit support package "to be implemented as soon as possible to help [affected] businesses," the Department of Tourism said on Twitter.

Antalya in Turkey was one of Thomas Cook's biggest destinations, along with Bodrum and Dalaman.

The 178-year-old British operator failed to obtain a last ditch rescue deal over the weekend and declared bankruptcy on Monday, leaving 600,000 tourists affected worldwide.

150,000 of these passengers are British seeking help from London to return home.

The United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the company's four airlines would be grounded and its 21,000 employees in 16 countries, including 9,000 in the UK, would lose their jobs.

The Civil Aviation Administration said that the government had a fleet of aircraft ready to take British customers over the next two weeks, and they would not depart for the airport until they were told to return.

The UK regulator also contacts hotels hosted by Thomas Cook customers to tell them that they will be paid through the ATOL scheme.

Hotels in Tunisia owed $ 66 million

Thomas Cook operator Blue Sky Group said on Monday that 25,000 bookings in Egypt booked up to April 2020 had been cell.

Blue Sky currently has 1,600 tourists in Egypt's resort of Hugharda, CEO Hossam El-Shaar said in a statement sent to Reuters.

Tunisian Tourism Minister Rene Trabelsi said that Thomas Cook owed Tunisian hotels 60 million euros ($ 66 million) for stays in July and August, adding that 4,500 UK customers are still in the country.

"I will have a meeting on Tuesday with the British Embassy in Tunisia and hotel managers to see how debt can be redeemed," Trabelsi said.

Tourism is an important sector of Tunisia's economy and a major source of foreign exchange, and the government expected an additional 50,000 Thomas Cook customers to visit this year, he added.

The major European tour operators only returned to Tunisia last year after 39 tourists, mostly British, were killed in an attack on a beach in Sousse in 2015, and 21 people died in an attack on the Bardo National Museum in the capital of Tunis the same year.

Tourist accounts for about 8 percent of Tunisia's economy and employs 400,000 people.

It was expected to receive a record nine million tourists by the end of 2019 after recovering from the impact of the 2015 attacks.

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He later posted that he reached the airport later on Saturday and flew home on Sunday.

The company said on Twitter on Sunday that it would repay customers who paid their credit cards for the hotel before leaving Tunisia and would not send any new arrivals to Les Orangers.

Tunisia's Ministry of Tourism on Sunday attributed the incident to a "misunderstanding" and said that tourists had been able to leave the plane originally booked.

"Fourteen tourists were asked to wait a few minutes to confirm with the representative of Thomas Cook … and quickly got the deal, and the tourists left and left on time last night," the ministry said in a statement.