‘We got about 8,000 complaints from the city’s dwellers last year, and some 200 complains came from travelers; however, we only handled the cases which could not be settled out of court,’ Chairman of Yekaterinburg Consumer Rights Committee Andrei Artemiev said to UrBC.

Mr. Artemiev says he wouldn’t be able to single out one travel agent that did a particularly bad job: rather, the number of claims was directly proportional to the number of an agent’s customers.

‘On the legal side of the issue, travelers have to beware of the so-called time-sharing terms, when a customer’s tour only covers expenses within the time-share zone at a holiday resort. This means all the other expenses will have to be paid by the customer in addition to the tour. In fact, such tours must be cheaper, but in Russia, they are way overpriced. Last year, people most often complained about Alfa Travel as far as this issue was concerned,’ Chairman said.