Bulgarian tourism will suffer losses after the collapse of Thomas Cook

The Bulgarian tourism industry will suffer losses of millions of BGN after the collapse of the British tour operator Thomas Cook.

In relation to that, Bulgaria’s Minister of Economy Nikolina Angelkova will meet with representatives of the British Embassy, travel companies and hoteliers. Yesterday, the Minister reassured the industry that all the obligations of the company to its Bulgarian counterparties will be paid by the British ATOL Guarantee Fund. 58 hotels in the country will be affected by the company’s collapse.

There are already two cancelled flights at Varna Airport and queues of 220 English tourists, clients of Thomas Cook.

220 people are waiting to go home, mainly British, but there are also some Bulgarians who have chosen to book their holiday through Thomas Cook. An 11 o'clock flight from Manchester to Varna was cancelled today, and at 12 o'clock these 220 people were scheduled to fly to Manchester, but that flight was also cancelled. A flight at 1:30 pm by Bu Air is scheduled to take 148 people on board.

Most likely, priority will be given to mothers with young children, elderly and people with disabilities. The information is not yet confirmed. The rest of the people are still waiting and do not know what will happen to them and when they will arrive in the UK. There are several options - to take them back to the hotels or to wait a few more hours at the airport, providing them with food and drinks.

Currently, there are more than 200 people at Bourgas airport waiting to go home. All flights of the company until the beginning of October were cancelled from and to Bulgaria.