2019 turned out to be quite stable for the Russian tourism business, especially in contrast to 2018, when several major players left the market at once, including Natalie Tours, DANKO, Zhemchuzhnaya Reka, etc. According to tour operators, sales were stable, and a number of directions showed good dynamics. Especially for its readers, the TRN portal has prepared a selection of the most important news. In the first part, we will present the main events for the first 6 months of the outgoing year.
Undoubtedly, the first and most significant event of 2019 was the dismissal of Oleg Safonov, the head of Rostourism. A few days later, the name of the new head of the Agency became known: Zarina Doguzova, who until that moment held the post of head of the department of public relations and communications in the presidential administration, headed Rostourism.
From March 13 to 14, the first industry championship of professional skills TravelSkills was held in Moscow, aimed at modernizing the system of training personnel for the tourism industry. The event was organized by the Union "Young Professionals (WorldSkills Russia)" and Travel Business School. In turn, the general information partner was the TRN portal.
On March 31, 2019, S7 co-owner Natalia Fileva died under tragic circumstances: the plane she was on crashed while landing at Frankfurt am Main Airport.
Also in the spring of the outgoing year, due to the revocation of the license of the insurance company "NASCO", 144 companies were under threat of exclusion from the register of tour operators. By the way, according to observers, the financial guarantees segment turned out to be the most "tense" this year - it is becoming increasingly difficult for tour operators to find insurers, and, apparently, this issue will not lose its relevance in the coming year.
Good news for the tourism market came in early June, when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order to the Prime Minister, heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service to ensure the introduction of a single electronic single-entry visa for foreigners entering Russia from January 1, 2021. Immediately after that, experts unanimously stated that such concessions would have an extremely positive effect on incoming tourist flow.
However, a few days later there were fewer reasons to rejoice: on June 21, 2019, Vladimir Putin signed the Decree “On Certain Measures to Ensure the National Security of the Russian Federation and Protect Citizens of the Russian Federation from Criminal and Other Illegal Actions,” which provided for a ban on flights from the Russian Federation to Georgia for Russian airlines.
The first half of 2019 ended with the departure from the market of the former subsidiary of the infamous tour operator Natalie Tours, the company New Travelers...
Source: trn-news.ru
