Tour operators stuck “Electronic ticket”

The rules developed by the authorities for working with the Electronic Voucher system, an analogue of the Unified State Automated Information System for tour operators, met with sharp criticism from the business. The main complaint is the inability to send mandatory data on the actual cost of sold tour packages to the system. Most of the vouchers are sold by companies through agents who are not included in the “Electronic voucher”: they set the final cost of the holiday for the tourist. The Ministry of Economy insists that tour operators form the product and are responsible for it.

At the disposal of “Kommersant” was the minutes of the meeting of the working group under the government commission on the reform of the tourism industry. The document refers to a possible “collapse of the industry” in the event of the approval of the rules for working with the “Electronic Voucher” system (EP; analogue of EGAIS for the tourist market) without taking into account the comments of market participants to the relevant government decree. Its current version does not eliminate the difficulties with the mandatory transfer by tour operators to the ES of data on the price of the tour package sold, the minutes of the working group say.

The problem is that only tour operators should connect to the system and enter information there, including the cost of tours. But companies often sell tour packages through agents who set the final price based on demand. If the operator three times indicates in the system its cost of the tour, which differs from the amount paid by the tourist in fact, then the company is excluded from the EP, the protocol explains. And this threatens the termination of the company. Another claim is the need to include in the ES the cost of sold tours for foreign tourists. According to the vice-president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry Dmitry Gorin, foreign companies collect information about tours sold abroad in the Russian Federation.

The department for the implementation of projects in the field of tourism activities of the Ministry of Economy told Kommersant that the current version of the draft resolution is the result of “parity of opinions of the parties.” They insist that operators form a tourist product, and therefore are responsible for its quality, regardless of who provided the service. “Electronic voucher” will ensure transparency, the ministry believes, since the tourist will be able to check in the system the legality of the tour operator’s activities, the final price of the tour and the included set of services.

Formally, the ES has been introduced in the Russian Federation since September 1, 2022 after seven years of its development. But the mechanism does not actually work yet: the responsibility for its non-use for tour operators in the field of outbound tourism was supposed to come on March 1 of this year, but the deadline was shifted to September 1. Until the flow of reliable information to the EP is improved, it will be impossible to protect the market “from the emergence of bubbles,” Georgy Mokhov, director of the Persona Grata agency, believes.

National Tourist Technologies JSC (EP operator) claims that more than 200 tour operators are connected to the system, which was put into operation in accordance with the terms of reference and industry legislation. Meanwhile, two interlocutors of Kommersant from among tour operators say that they do not know of a single case of a major player working with EP.

One of the reasons is just the reluctance of operators and agents to disclose the final cost of vouchers. Agents receive tours for sale from operators on exclusive terms, and the size of the sellers’ commission, according to Maya Lomidze, executive director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), is considered a trade secret.

The EP was created, among other things, to avoid scandals when refunding funds to tourists when canceling tours. But it is this mechanism, according to Alexei Kozhevnikov, a member of the public expert council of the national tourism project, that is not enshrined in the developed rules for working with the system: “It is not clear how much and who will return the tourist in case of force majeure.”

The CEO of Dolphin, Sergey Romashkin, also calls the technical issue of entering data into the ES painful for business: “Large operators can sell about 5 thousand tours per day, that is, 50 thousand lines will need to be manually entered into the system, which will require separate personnel” . Maya Lomidze confirms that companies will have to incur additional costs for integrating with the system.

Alexandra Mertsalova