Domestic tourism lost 1.5 trillion rubles because of the pandemic

The Office asks the heads of regions to allocate additional funds to support domestic tourism.

- Tourism has become one of the industries that the Russian government recognized as the most affected by the consequences of the spread of coronavirus infection. At the moment, the decline in tourism turnover has reached 95-100%, and the volume of lost revenue has already exceeded 1.5 trillion rubles, - TASS quoted a letter from the head of the Federal Tourism Agency Zarina Doguzova to the heads of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

She noted that stopping tourist flows due to the coronavirus pandemic caused serious damage to several dozen other industries. These include transportation, culture, recreation and entertainment, construction, catering, retail and other industries.

Doguzova emphasized that maintaining a highly professional personnel base and infrastructure base of the domestic tourism industry requires additional support measures, including at the regional level.

- I consider it extremely important to maintain the volume of regional budgetary allocations for tourism and, if possible, to allocate additional funds for its development and promotion. Restoring the industry from scratch will be a much more costly and lengthy process than providing timely targeted assistance to existing enterprises, the head of the Federal Tourism Agency said in a letter.

She drew attention to the fact that it is the development of domestic tourism after lifting restrictive measures that can give the regions a powerful economic impetus for recovery.

Recall that the Krasnodar Territory is ready to open its resort facilities from June 1. However, not all Kuban sanatoriums will begin work from this time on. Institutions must meet all the requirements from the list compiled by the chief sanitary doctor of the Russian Federation. But industry representatives are confident that it is simply impossible to fulfill all the requirements. In particular, the question arises, how to wear masks in the forty-degree heat?

The Association of Russian Tour Operators noted that the industry needed new investments - to comply with all the provisions of the list of Rospotrebnadzor.

- Almost 400 million rubles are needed to prepare sanatoriums for these recommendations. Health resorts say that it’s easier for them to stay closed than to find these funds, ” said Ilya Umansky, vice president of the association.