The size of the resort fee was announced this week. The highest rate installed in Stavropol Krai - 50 rubles per day. In Altai Krai, according to preliminary data, tourists will be must pay 30 rubles per day in the first year, and 50 rubles in subsequent years. The smallest collection in Krasnodar Krai – 10 rubles per person. The Crimean authorities have not yet decided on the amount of the fee.
"I think that the introduction of a resort tax of such size will not particularly affect either tourist flows or the mood of vacationers," Viktor Topolkaraev, General Director of the Intourist Scientific and Technical Company, told the Interfax-Tourism portal. Yuri Barzykin, Vice President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUTI), holds a different opinion: "Some regions have decided not to divide the tax by seasons; they will collect it all year round. But I can hardly imagine tourists who will go to our southern regions in the low season and be ready to pay something extra. This will undoubtedly affect demand."
Sergey Romashkin, CEO of the tour operator Dolphin, recalled that the maximum fee in the first year is legally limited to 50 rubles per day. "Therefore, the tourism business expects problems only in the second year, when the regions may want to raise the rates," he explained.
Tour operators are concerned about how much the fees will correspond to the goal set when it was introduced – improving tourism infrastructure, developing resort areas, etc. “We understand that with fees of 30-50 rubles per person per day, resort regions are unlikely to receive significant funds. So that it does not turn out that everything that is received in the form of fees will go not to the development of tourism infrastructure, but to the administration of the fee,” noted the general director of NTK Intourist.
Y. Barzykin suggested that of the 270 million rubles that they expect to collect in Krasnodar Krai, the largest part may go to administration. "This can only be understood based on the results of its introduction and analysis of at least the first year," V. Topolkaraev noted in turn.
According to S. Romashkin, it is important for the regions not only to collect funds, but also to show tourists what they are spent on. "Crimea conducted a survey, and most tourists said that they are ready to pay the fee if the money really goes to improving the tourist and recreational infrastructure. Therefore, it is important for the regions not only to collect money, but also to show tourists what it is spent on. It is necessary to competently PR the results: for example, to say that we collected so much money last year through the collection and with it we made this path and this beach. People are pleased to see the results and realize that they participated in this," the general director of "Dolphin" emphasized.
Yu. Barzykin recalled that this is not the first attempt to introduce a resort fee in Russian regions. "Perhaps the experiment will show that there is no need to retransmit this system to the whole of Russia. Or maybe, on the contrary, the fee will prove to be an effective mechanism, but so far I do not see any prerequisites for this," said the representative of the Russian Union of Travel Industry.
The experiment on collecting resort tax will be conducted in the territories of Crimea, Altai, Krasnodar and Stavropol Krais from January 1, 2018, the tax itself can be collected from May 1, 2018, the end of the experiment is scheduled for December 31, 2022. Payers of the fee will be adult citizens who stay for more than a day in a hotel or other accommodation facility.
The amount of the resort tax and the territories where it will be collected, the procedure and terms for its payment and transfer to the budget of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation are established by regional authorities. The amount of the tax may not exceed 50 rubles per person per day of stay in a hotel in 2018 and 100 rubles in other years of the experiment. The amount of the tax may be differentiated depending on the season and the time of the payer's stay at the accommodation facility.
Source: tourism.interfax.ru