Tourism office owners to face jail term, fine in Oman

Muscat: The First Instance Court in Muscat Governorate has issued a court ruling against a travel and tourism office with imprisonment for a period of three months and a fine of OMR 1,000.

A statement issued online by the Consumer Protection Authority (CPA) said: "The First Instance Court in Muscat recently issued a court ruling against a travel and tourism office for violating the Consumer Protection Law promulgated by Royal Decree No. (66/2014), which condemned the accused with a misdemeanor for failure to provide the service properly and in accordance with its nature and punished for it with imprisonment for a period of three months and a fine of OMR 1,000, and obligating the accused to pay the expenses.”

The statement explained: "A complaint was received from a consumer who reported that he had contracted with one of travel and tourism offices to book a travel package to the Kingdom of Thailand that includes booking tickets from Muscat to Bangkok, domestic transportation to and from the airport, as well as the internal airline tickets, hotels and tourist trips.”

“But after arriving in Bangkok, it became clear to him that the office was not committed to providing the services agreed upon in the contract, in not confirming bookings for domestic and tourist trips, as well as hotel bookings in other cities covered by the agreement,” the statement added.

"He also tried to contact the office several times, but it was not possible, as all the contact numbers were unreachable, which prompted him to pay the bookings amounts himself to complete the trip, and after returning to the Sultanate he went to find out the reasons for not adhering to the confirmation of bookings, as it was found that the owner of the office was being arrested in the police station, and he promised him to compensate him for the prices of internal airline tickets and hotel bookings within two days, but he did not comply with that and began to delay returning the sum.”