The founder of Planet Holidays has called for a crackdown on the growing number of wedding planners in Cyprus offering no financial protection.
Mathilde Robert, managing director of wedding specialist Planet Holidays, said she had witnessed a steep increase in former operator employees setting up as wedding planners in Cyprus.
She said: “It seems like anybody who’s ever worked for a tour operator is becoming a wedding planner. They take clients’ money with no security or protection.
“These are people working from a laptop in a room somewhere – they could collect the clients’ money and disappear.”Robert has spoken to Antigoni Kapodistria of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation, who is in charge of wedding tourism in Cyprus, about establishing an association for wedding planners and suppliers in the destination.
The CTO confirmed it was looking into the idea.
Robert also urged agents to advise clients to book with a reputable wedding operator.
She said there were instances of couples buying a holiday with Thomson or Thomas Cook but booking their wedding with local photographers, florists and caterers.
Deputy Paphos mayor Marios Papis recently told the local press that he had received complaints from several companies, including Thomson and Thomas Cook, which said they were losing tens of thousands of pounds each year to unlicensed wedding planners in Cyprus.
Robert said Planet and other operators had to step in when things had gone wrong in the past.
She said: “It’s getting worse all the time, especially with the economic situation meaning a lot of people are out of a job. It’s Cyprus’s reputation that will suffer, and therefore we will suffer.”