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The Turkish Tourism Ministry said that hotels that require tourist payments or expel them due to the collapse of the British tourism agency Thomas Cook will be prosecuted.
The ministry announced that there are currently 21,033 Thomas Cook customers in Turkey and that their expenses would be covered by the protection of the UK Air Travel Organizer License (ATOL).
The president of the Turkish Hoteliers Federation said on Monday that the collapse of the British operator meant that Turkey could accommodate 600,000 to 700,000 fewer tourists a year.
Hotel Federation President Osman Ayik told the Reuters news agency that Thomas Cook owed £ 100,000 to £ 200,000 ($ 124,000 to $ 248,000) to some small hotels, which could suffer following the events of Monday.
The Ministry of Tourism said it would support local businesses affected by bankruptcy.
"The Ministries of Tourism and Finance are working on a" credit support package "to be put in place as soon as possible to help [affected] companies, "said the Ministry of Tourism on Twitter.
Antalya in Turkey was one of the main destinations of Thomas Cook, with Bodrum and Dalaman.
The 178-year-old British operator failed to secure an ultimate bailout deal over the weekend and declared bankruptcy Monday, leaving 600,000 tourists affected worldwide.
Some 150,000 of these passengers are British looking for help from London to return home.
The United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced that its four airlines would be tied up and its 21,000 employees in 16 countries, including 9,000 in the UK, would lose their jobs.
The CAA said the government has a fleet of planes ready to take British customers back over the next two weeks and that they should not go to the airport until they have been informed of the planned their return flight.
The UK regulator also contacts hotels hosting Thomas Cook's customers to tell them that they will be paid via the ATOL system.
Tunisian hotels owed 66 million dollars
Blue Sky Group, operator of Thomas Cook, announced Monday that 25,000 bookings in Egypt recorded until April 2020 had been canceled.
Blue Sky currently has 1,600 tourists in the resort of Hugharda in Egypt, said the chief executive, Hossam El-Shaar, in a statement sent to Reuters.
Tunisian Tourism Minister Rene Trabelsi said Thomas Cook owed the Tunisian hotels 60 million euros for stays in July and August, adding that 4,500 British customers are still in the country.
"I will have a meeting Tuesday with the British Embassy in Tunisia and the hotel owners to see how the debt could be repaid," Trabelsi said.
Tourism is a vital sector for the Tunisian economy and a major source of foreign exchange, and the government expects 50,000 additional Thomas Cook customers to visit this year, he added.
The main European tour operators started to return to Tunisia last year only after the death of 39 mainly British tourists, during an attack on a beach in Sousse in 2015, and the death of 21 people during An attack on the National Museum of Bardo, in the capital Tunis. same year.
Tourism accounts for about 8% of the Tunisian economy and employs 400,000 people.
He had expected to receive a record number of nine million tourists by the end of 2019, after having recovered from the impact of the 2015 attacks.
We barricaded
Meanwhile, British tourists in Tunisia said their hotel had prevented them from leaving for several hours on Saturday night for reasons related to Thomas Cook's payment arrears, although the Tunisian government said the incident was a misunderstanding.
Gary Seale, guest of Les Orangers hotel in Hammamet, said on Facebook: "The security refused to let us out of the hotel and barricaded us."
He then said that he had reached the airport later on Saturday and had gone to Sunday.
The company announced Sunday on Twitter that it would refund customers who paid their credit card for their hotel before leaving Tunisia and would not send any new arrivals to Les Orangers.
The Tunisian Ministry of Tourism on Sunday attributed the incident to a "misunderstanding" and said the tourists had been able to leave on the originally booked flight.
"Fourteen tourists were invited to wait a few minutes to confirm with Thomas Cook's representative … and quickly got the agreement.The tourists left and went to the hour last night," said the ministry in a statement.
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