Summer is the hottest season for travel agents. After all, it is at this time of the year that many vacationers buy vouchers to Russian and foreign resorts. But recently, information has spread that Russian tour operators, even the largest ones, may soon have difficulties in their work. Moreover, as if the matter could come to a refusal to fulfill obligations to customers who have already bought vouchers for the second half of summer and autumn.
In the spring of this year, amendments were made to the Federal Law "On the Fundamentals of Tourist Activities". In accordance with them, all Russian travel companies with an annual turnover of over 250 million rubles must submit documents to Rostourism on increasing financial guarantees for their clients.
Legislators explained the need to adopt such amendments by the fact that there were multiple cases when Russians vacationing abroad found themselves in a difficult situation because of the mutual financial claims of their tour operator and the receiving party. For example, the tour operator for some reason did not transfer the required amount of money to the receiving party, and because of this, Russian tourists were refused to lodge in hotels or release them until the debt was paid off. That is, to put it simply, people who paid for the services in advance and in full turned out to be extreme in a conflict situation, which Russian diplomats had to resolve.
To minimize the possibility of such situations, additional financial guarantees of their reliability were demanded from tour operators. According to the adopted amendments, these guarantees were to be provided to Rostourism before July 4. A tour operator who does not provide them is threatened with exclusion from the Unified Register. However, so far only 13 tour operators out of 43 have done this. This is due to various reasons, including the fact that many insurance companies either leave the tourism market due to increased risks, or tighten insurance conditions. Therefore, the Russians who have already bought the vouchers were quite rightly worried: would their money be lost?
Most likely, such fears are unfounded. It is unlikely that the heads of Rostourism, as well as the largest tour operators and insurance companies, will allow the collapse of the tourist services market. As the responsible officials of Rostourism assure, active work is underway to resolve the resulting legal conflict, and there is a good chance that the overwhelming majority of tour operators will be able to provide these guarantees in the near future. In addition, all Russians who bought vouchers valid until May 31, 2013, even in the event of the termination of the company's activities, will be able to get back its value.
