Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Polskie Towarzystwo Ubezpieczen (PTU) gave guarantees to Open Travel although no one else wanted to secure the travel office.
The bankruptcy of Open Travel is the biggest in the history of the Polish tourism market. According to Pawel Przewoznik, the company’s CEO, there are about 700 clients of this touroperator left abroad without any help. Now, PTU is going to pay for the comeback of the tourists. PTU gave Open Travel PLN 4m (EUR 1m) of guarantees. Jan Korsak, the CEO of the Polish Chamber of Tourism said it was no secret to anybody that the travel office had troubles. First signals appeared in January. Open Travel asked PTU for the guarantees in April when all the other insurers refused to secure it.
At first, PTU also refused to guarantee the operations of the travel office. Then, it changed its mind.
“Decision was made by the management of the company”, Monika Piechnik, the director of the financial insurance in PTU said.
Henryk Leczkowksi, PTU financial director, did not want to say how the damages will affect his company.
“I’m on holiday’, he said.
The agreement with Open Travel was not reassured, which means that PTU will have to bear all the financial consequences of the travel office’s bankruptcy. The premium amounted to PLN 40,000-120,000 according to the estimates of the specialists, which means that PTU will lose PLN 3.9m. At the end of June, PTU had PLN 2.3m of net income.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.252)