V.Ö. Travel, the tour operator launched two years ago by veteran Turkey tourism entrepreneur Vural Öger, has declared insolvency and stopped trading.
The loss-making company remained behind its targets this year and bookings for 2016 have also started badly, owner Vural Öger told fvw. In addition, Öger was impacted by €16 million worth of debts owed to his Turkish hotel group Majesty Hotels by insolvent Russian tour operator Teztour and several other Russian firms.
In view of the economic situation in Russia and weak bookings in Germany, Öger said he did not expect any improvement this year and the insolvency of V.Ö Travel had thus been unavoidable. Some 16 employees are impacted. His incoming agency Holiday Plan will also close down but the separate tour operator Öger Türk Tur is not affected and is trading normally.
Öger said that some 200 guests are affected by the insolvency but their return flights to Germany are not in danger as they have been paid for. Hotel payments will be covered by the Hamburg-based company’s insurer Zurich Versicherung.
Vural Öger is best known as the founder of Öger Tours, the Turkey tour operator he founded more than two decades ago and sold to Thomas Cook in 2011. In January 2014 he returned to the German market with the launch of V.Ö. Travel as a new specialist tour operator for Turkey holidays. The company claimed to have had some 70,000 customers in the tourism year ending October 2014 and had hoped to more than double bookings to over 150,000 in 2014/15.
