Following a recent travel agency collapse that left 186 consumers out of pocket with minimal recoverable funds, new legislation is being drafted to strengthen compensation rules, members of parliament learned this week.

During a session of the House commerce committee, officials said that while about €100,000 must be returned to affected customers, the travel organiser’s guarantee amounts to just €12,000, meaning each consumer will receive roughly 13 cents per euro paid.

According to the Cyprus Consumers Association, most of those affected were pensioners. 

After the session, Stavros Papadouris, president of Cyprus’ Green part and an MP, said “consumers will once again come to pay for the negligence of the state in the end”.  

He added that since 2020 the consumers association had warned there was a problem, while the consumer protection service “ignored the alerts”.

Papadouris also told reporters that new legislation was being drafted to cover cases involving bankrupt travel agencies, although it is expected to take seven to eight months.  

However, he said he was not satisfied with the approach so far, noting that “the legislation that is being prepared now does not satisfy me personally”.  

As he put it, the plan involves an additional amount to be paid by consumers, which will be used to cover future compensation. 

Moreover, he questioned the government’s reasoning, saying that “if you want to solve a problem, you proactively put in place safeguards so that any cunning person who tries to deceive both the system and its customers will have a cost”. 

Separately, the president of the association, Marios Drousiotis, reiterated that the €12,000 guarantee against €100,000 in claims would leave each person recovering only 13 per cent of what they paid.  

“We consider this unacceptable as consumers,” he said, adding that responsibility lay with the Association of Cyprus Travel and Tourism Agents (ACTTA), the Energy Ministry and the Consumer Protection Service.

“Some people did not do their job and we are seeing the same thing again, consumers paying the price,” he said.

In response to questions, Drousiotis stressed that the issue was not the law itself but those responsible for applying it.  

“It is not the law’s to blame. It is those who were supposed to enforce it,” Drousiotis concluded.