In debt to the armpit: the tourist business owes clients $ 10 billion

Russian tour operators owe their clients about 10 billion dollars in "undiscovered" countries - that is, in tourist destinations that were canceled due to the pandemic. And the most unpleasant thing is that the tourist market has nowhere to take this money, while the return dates are approaching, since the government decree on "covid" tours is about to expire. If clients begin to sue en masse, then the market will simply cease to function, and both tourists and tour operators will suffer equally.

Experts have calculated that for a full settlement of debts for canceled tours, tour operators will need at least a year, and then only after the full opening of tourist destinations, when it will be possible to fly to these countries without restrictions. Today there are about 20-25 such countries, and less than a dozen of them are fully open!

This means that tour operators will not be able to even partially return the money to clients.

“There is a critical situation: there is no money for all 100% of refunds until December 31, 2021, and consumer lawsuits, which are already being massively filed against tour operators, in January-February 2022 will still not allow receiving compensation, since the funds are suddenly not will appear. But they can block the activities of tour operators and threaten the execution of tours that have already been purchased by tourists for 2022, "ATOR experts say.

As a result, an equally numerous contingent of those who will be left without money and without tours will join the army of 200 thousand clients whose obligations have not been fulfilled. And this will almost inevitably lead to a catastrophe for the entire industry and a social explosion.

According to experts, there is very little time to try to avoid this, and therefore they have already sent letters to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, in which they ask either to extend the validity of the government decree on covid tours, or to change the Rules for the provision of services for the sale of a tourist product, in order to establish a new procedure for interaction between tour operators and customers with regard to emergency refunds. ATOR proposes to allow the tour operator to pay by clients either by tours or in money for one more year after the removal of all restrictions.

At the same time, another 15 Russian tour operators were “removed” from the market by the order of the Federal Tourism Agency, due to problems with financial guarantees to clients. On average, according to experts, with each new order, the number of companies on the market is reduced by 15-16.

Today, 381 outbound tour operators remain on the register. Earlier, experts predicted a "massive fall" for the country's tourism market by 60%!