Dozens of Czech travel agencies are in danger of bankruptcy

Travel agencies in the Czech Republic must return customers' money for unused travel vouchers issued during the pandemic under the lex voucher law by mid-September. However, some of them will not be able to do so and will have to declare insolvency, said the novinky.cz server. Some will not be able to financially survive the two summer seasons marked by the pandemic of the new coronavirus, and ski tour operators have also been hit hard. According to the Ministry of Regional Development, 17 travel agencies have closed since August 2020 and 136 have closed. Only a part of them will resume activities and no one knows how many there will be. "Currently, we are dealing with the only bankruptcy of our insured travel agency, namely Cekare. At the end of September, it will be decided to recognize the insolvency of the travel agency Travel Planet," Vlastimil Divoký, a spokesman for ERV of the European insurance company, told the daily Právo. Prague's Cekare was one of the well-established travel agencies. It has been offering tours for the 31st season. She originally specialized in ski trips to France and Italy, then added Southeast Asia, South Africa and the USA. Travel Planet has been operating since 2006 and has made trips to the Greek islands, Turkey and Tunisia. The deadline for repaying unused vouchers will show how the other travel agencies are doing. "Smaller players in the market will have problems with repaying money, and dozens of them are in danger of potential bankruptcy," Divoký estimated. However, he added that most vouchers were issued by the largest travel agencies, where the risk of possible bankruptcy is the lowest. The daily Právo has previously informed that, in addition to lex vouchers, some travel agencies issued other, their own vouchers, for which the obligation to return money does not apply. However, some dissatisfied clients plan to judge them. According to estimates by the Czech Insurance Association (ČAP), Czech travel agencies have issued vouchers of all types for tours for approximately 94 million euros. Hundreds of millions of crowns have already been returned to clients in recent weeks, mostly by large travel agencies. According to ČAP spokeswoman Veronika Nová, the lex voucher remains to be paid out in excess of 23 million euros under the law.