Orizonia Closes Down, Leaves 700 Spanish Tourists Stranded in the Caribbean

Orizonia, the tour operator that last weekend filed for bankruptcy and left 700 Spanish tourists stranded in Cancun and Riviera Maya, has announced on that the company will close down if buyers don’t show up on a short notice.

That’s what Orizonia director Jose Duato has told his employees during a meeting held in Palma. Furthermore, the company is going to launch on Wednesday a volunteer creditor contest with a furlough notice (FN), which will be affecting around 3,000 and 3,500 workers, since part of the company is going to be close, according to union sources. The company has informed that for the time being it won’t go for a debtors gathering.

The FN will be mainly affecting workers from Baleares as it entails firing over 1,000 employees. The secretary of Labor Union Action, Carmen Diaz de la Jara, has also disclosed that Orizonia is only planning to keep a share of Orbest and some retail offices, while it will be dismantling the rest of the group, including Viajes Iberia, which is presently called Vibo.

Diaz de la Jara has pointed out that the workers from Baleares are going to be mostly affected by the FN since it will have 1,000 Orizonia employees laid off on the islands. Therefore, she has underlined that, at national level, "some 1,500 workers will remain untouched", just as Duato told them during the abovementioned meeting, described as a “knock-down-and-drag-out powwow.”

Facing this situation, the secretary of Labor Union Action has announced that she is going to ask for a meeting "as soon as possible" with the minister of Tourism, Carlos Delgado, and the Employment Head Office, because the FN represents "a major blow" not only for tourism, but also for thousands of workers that are going "to be left jobless."

On the other hand, she has revealed that Duato told the employees that the company "is going to try to save February wages". Finally, Diaz de la Jara has sadly said that "unless a miracle happens, a big share of Orizonia will disappear from the national map."

Sources from Orizonia have said that "due to the complexity of finding a solution to continue the activity, a result of the request for the debtors’ gathering last Friday, it will focus its efforts on trying to work out a solution to guarantee the viability of the largest number of jobs possible. The company is aiming its action at this line of work and hopes to be able to formalize in coming days solutions that would give continuity to some of its business lines", they said.

We learned on Friday that the group filed for bankruptcy since its merger with Globalia is mothballed due to a decision made by the Competence National Commission. After this piece of news was published, Spanish airline Orbest, owned by Orizonia, called off its flights, a move that hit 700 Spanish tourists in Cancun and Riviera Maya.