Andrey Ershov
In Russia, there is a high interest of investors in the development of tourism infrastructure. This was said by Sergey Krasnopyorov, Executive Director of the Tourism.RF Corporation, during the round table discussions held by the Expert Council on Tourism.
Based on the results of two years of the corporation’s work, 75 investment projects for the tourism infrastructure development in 45 regions of Russia are at different stages of implementation, he says.
“The total number of rooms for these projects is over 21,000 in accommodation facilities of various categories. In 2023, we must select another 15 investment projects from the general list and determine the obligations for them, as well as approve the creation of at least 5,000 hotel rooms. We will start using a significant amount of the new hotel rooms in 2024-2025. The project implementation map for the coming years covers the entire country - from Kaliningrad and the Smolensk Region to Magadan and the Irkutsk Region,” he says.
Krasnopyorov also added that the project implementation had begun to create the “Novaya Anapa” All-Russian Beach Family Resort located 25 km from the city of Anapa, near the village of Blagoveshchenskaya. In addition, master plans for the integrated development of the tourism areas will be worked out like Laishevo, Gorny Vozdukh, Belokurikha Gornaya, and Taltsy.
In turn, senator Mohmad Akhmadov, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy, drew attention to a number of problems hindering the domestic tourism development, including, first of all, the ongoing closure of a number of southern airports, insufficient traffic, lack of accommodation facilities.
The senator stressed that it was important to speed up the adoption of laws necessary to launch the payment system “tourist card” and other services that would allow foreign travellers to make cashless payments and make purchases in Russia.
Akhmadov said it was also necessary to develop a draft law on VAT exemption from January 1, 2023 to June 30, 2027 for tour operators in terms of selling tourism products in the domestic and inbound tourism sectors and submit it to the State Duma as soon as possible.
Earlier, the parliamentarians also drew attention to the need of working out the mechanisms for implementing the law on e-vouchers that was adopted in 2022. According to the document, from September 1, 2023, tour operators in all subjects of the Russian Federation should use electronic vouchers in their activities, and all sold tours should be entered into the Unified Information System of Electronic Vouchers. The electronic system allows each tourist to receive additional guarantees of the purchased services’ quality. Each voucher sold receives its own unique number and a QR code, so any traveller is able to easily get the required information about the status of the tour and the payment for the tour.
