Piggy bank of tourist debts – Newspaper Kommersant No. 176 (7377) of 09/23/2022

The decision of the authorities to carry out a partial mobilization literally sowed panic in the tourism community. Its scale is well shown by more than 500 comments under the last post in the Telegram channel of the head of Rostourism, Zarina Doguzova. The key problem, both for business and for travelers, is what to do with tours already purchased before September 21? “In the current situation, all tours with men are under threat, some insurers said that mobilization is not an insured event, what to do?” one of the commentators asks a reasonable question. Participants of the tourist market interviewed by Kommersant explained that they were waiting for recommendations from the regulator. But Zarina Doguzova herself only “asked for clarification.”

The decision has not yet been made, but it can already be assumed that it will not be in favor of the tourism industry: Aeroflot, for example, has already recognized the refusal of mobilized passengers to be transported as forced and promised to return the funds not only to them, but also to fellow travelers-relatives. A similar position, according to Izvestia, was taken by S7 Airlines.

Tour operators unofficially admit that they should do the same in a good way. But far from large private companies do not have the resources of a state-owned air carrier, and the very thought of taking on these risks and approaching loss estimates causes them horror. Its nature is easy to understand, remembering the remaining debts for “pandemic” (sold before March 2020) and “military” (sold before February 24) tours – in total we are talking about 23.5 billion rubles.

There is no doubt that the appearance of “mobilized” tours in this piggy bank of bad debts will significantly increase the amount. Now we will at least talk not only about packages that have risen in price this year due to a shortage of transportation packages abroad, but also about traveling around Russia. The activity of the latter was carefully supported by the “tourist cashback” campaign that ended literally on September 10: according to Rostourism, 600 thousand people took advantage of it, who booked tours and hotel accommodation for 14.3 billion rubles.

The main intrigue now is whether there is, in principle, an adequate answer to the question: who, when and to what extent should return money to tourists? Formally, the government can shift all responsibility to business.

But in the context of the “pandemic” debts that have been dragging on since 2020, it is hardly worth expecting that he will fulfill these obligations. Except perhaps due to record sales of tours for the New Year holidays in Thailand, Egypt or Sochi resorts. Only they are not expected against the background of the lack of understanding among consumers who, in principle, falls under the criteria for partial mobilization and what to expect next.