Guest houses are being brought out of the shadows – Kommersant FM

Guest houses that do not pass the classification will be denied access to aggregators. Kommersant FM was informed about this by the Ostrovok company. This means that there will be fewer tourist accommodation facilities. The Krasnodar Territory, Crimea and Sevastopol were chosen as experimental sites. A bill on the legalization of guest houses has been developed since 2021. In November, according to the Ministry of Economic Development, it is planned to be submitted to the State Duma. However, there is still no consensus on how to systematize such objects and what needs to be done to get into the register. How will this affect the tourism market? And will it be possible to bring the cottages out of the shadows? Aelita Kurmukova found out.

In order for a guest house to be recognized as legal and included in the special register, its owner must be registered there or at least registered in housing on the same site. This means that the authorities want to see the entire chain of small accommodation facilities.

The bill on the legalization of guest houses has been agreed upon by departments for the third year now, and there are still no specifics, says Natalya Petrovskaya, co-chair of the League of Small Hotels, Hostels and Tourist Accommodations:

“We mixed everything we could. Suddenly they offer hotel services in guest houses. And the Housing Code of 2019 prohibits the placement of hotels in residential premises. They introduce a classification, but do not directly write that it is mandatory, but judging by the context, it turns out that it is mandatory. There is not even a classification system for guest houses.

I believe that this is a lobbied order from hotels located in the ZhS. It’s also clear what to do with these hotels; they just need to simplify the procedure for converting premises into non-residential ones. There are so many subjective activities that depend on the review of inspectors that it is actually extremely difficult to do this.”

It is impossible to count how many guest houses there are. Kommersant FM’s interlocutors claim that their share is about 70% of the total number of accommodation facilities. And in Russia, according to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, there are more than 30 thousand hotels, sanatoriums and recreation centers, which is more than a million rooms.

In exchange for infrastructure development, the government promises hotels preferences and benefits. It is not yet clear what guest houses will receive if they come out of the shadows, adds the director of the B2B direction of the group of companies

“Island” Daria Kochetkova:

“Guest houses that work with aggregator sites must be either a legal entity or self-employed at a minimum. And they are already working in white. There are a lot of them, so, apparently, I want to cover everything. The aspiration is not bad, there is even a register that they need to enter, and it will be an application, but there still needs to be motivation, some benefits.

This will most likely not be resolved through a ban. The launch date of the experiment is April 1, but the responsibility has not yet been specified, except for the ban on aggregators. We need to give some kind of grace period for the experimental period. These are, after all, seasonal facilities, and on April 1 they will only begin to operate. You can’t just ban everything before the season.”

The south of Russia—Krasnodar Territory, Crimea and Sevastopol—was chosen as an experiment to whitewash the market. This is where most of these accommodation facilities are located. This means that from April 1, there will be noticeably fewer guest houses on aggregator sites. Without a special register, advertising will now be prohibited for them. And, according to various sources, more than half of the guest houses are located in the shadow sector of the experimental regions. But many who work in the legal field will want to whitewash, Chairman of the Union of Hoteliers Roman Sabirzhanov does not rule out:

“You shouldn’t think that the law is not interesting for guest houses. I know many owners who are waiting for some kind of regulation. This means that there are rules of the game and you can claim something. These are, as a rule, advanced entrepreneurs who invest in guest houses and try to create points of attraction for the regions.”

The Ministry of Economy promises guest house owners a minimum of documents for registration and inspections by regulatory authorities. Preferences are not excluded. For example, over the past two years, the government, according to Mikhail Mishustin, has allocated over 100 billion rubles to support entrepreneurs in the tourism sector.

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