Vacation allowance – Newspaper Kommersant No. 40 (7485) dated 03/10/2023

“How long has Petersburg been a resort?” – such a question is asked by commentators on the news about the upcoming experiment on the introduction of a resort tax in St. Petersburg from August 1. According to the text of the draft resolution prepared by the regional authorities, 100 rubles each. per day will be taken from almost all adult tourists staying both in hotels, hostels, and in residential premises for temporary residence for more than a day.

The initiative, as expected, caused indignation among the participants of the tourist market: in the comments in the relevant communities, they call the collection a hidden tax, and St. Petersburg itself is ironically called the “resort capital”. “I understand, training camps in the south of Russia. But in St. Petersburg – this is already too much. City of federal importance with huge budgets. What’s the other fee?” – one of the users is outraged.

Formally, the time for the experiment is indeed not the most successful: domestic tourism is growing, but many representatives of the hotel and tourism business have not yet recovered from the pandemic. Especially when it comes to St. Petersburg, where foreigners, according to local authorities, formed half of the tourist flow before the pandemic. Now it is difficult to expect recovery of volumes.

But in fact, the authorities seem to have nothing to fear. Despite the active indignation of tourists and businesses, who stated that the costs of administering payments often exceed the amount of the fee, in fact, the experiment did not lead to a reduction in the flow of tourists either to the Stavropol Territory, or to the Krasnodar Territory, or even to the Altai Belokurikha. For example, 7.2 million tourists came to Sochi in 2022. Local authorities called the figure a record for 100 years. In Belokurikha, during the last New Year holidays, there were 40% more tourists than a year earlier.

The choice of destinations for mass travelers is now very limited, most of them consider short trips around Russia as an alternative to trips abroad that have become inaccessible. “As Europe was covered, resort fees immediately went. Coincidence?” – they write under a post in the Telegram channel of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR).

So, apparently, it is better for tourists to prepare for mandatory payments, and hoteliers to tune in to resolve conflicts with guests. And this is not only about St. Petersburg: it is quite possible that other regions will want to follow the example of the city. After all, we are talking about additional income, albeit small. In the case of St. Petersburg, for example, according to preliminary estimates of ATOR, we can talk about 400-500 million rubles. per year, or 0.04–0.05% of the city’s total planned income for 2023 (1.05 trillion rubles). The question of whether such an addition to the budget is worth the annoyance of tourists, each “resort town” will decide for itself.