Results of the Congress of Travel Agencies

The main points addressed at II All-Russian Congress of Travel Agencies, held from 9 to 12 April in Sochi, were relations with tour operators, reduction of fees, electronic vouchers, and the future of travel agencies' activities.

According to the organizers, the Congress was attended by over 450 companies from the tourism industry, representatives of the Federal Tourism Agency of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Transport of Russia, Federal Tax Service, Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare, the Federation Council, and the State Duma.

At the plenary session of the Congress, Dmitry Gorin, adviser to the head of Federal Tourism Agency and general director of the Vipservice Holding, presented a report on relations with air and rail carriers.

'Our work for the tourism industry over the past year resulted in emergence of a more convenient format for group bookings, obtaining a prompt response from JSC Russian Railways, as well as an increase in the depth of sales of railway tickets up to 60 days. A permanent 50% discount for children's transportation was introduced. Particular attention was paid to the introduction of special tourist tariffs for rail transportation and the development of subsidies in aviation', said Dmitry Gorin.

He fully supported the initiative proposed by Senator Igor Fomin to allocate subsidies of at least 1 billion rubles in 2018 for the development of domestic transportation.

The topic of the Congress which caused the most energetic discussion was the issue of introducing the electronic voucher. Developers of the project from the Asteros Сompany and representatives of the working group, which included Dmitry Gorin, participated in a round-table on this topic. He called for consolidation of all public associations and independent agencies to participate in changes in the tourism legislation, as well as to introduce and test the electronic voucher.

Following the discussion, listeners expressed a hope that the professional opinion of the working group on electronic travel voucher would help to create a convenient technological product.

The II All-Russian Congress of Travel Agencies resulted in signing a resolution which included a list of initiatives offered by tourism business.