The government of the Russian Federation has extended the possibility for tour operators to fulfill their remaining obligations regarding trips canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic by the end of 2022.
We are talking about trips that were purchased from tour operators before March 31, 2020. The relevant law was passed by the State Duma in December last year.
The decision only applies to trips to those countries that were closed last year to tourism or were severely restricted in the past year — meaning that the tour operator was not able to provide the intended equivalent tourism product in line with the decision. In these countries, by the end of this year, tour operators must offer tourists a similar tourist product or refund.
At the same time, there are countries for which it was possible to meet covid obligations before the end of last year. Therefore, the decision does not apply to these countries, and tour operators are obliged to fulfill their obligations now — if not done by the end of last year. The list of these countries is published on the website of the Federal Tourism Agency.
A measure similar to the decision was in place from 2020 to 2021 and allowed the business to meet almost 90% of its existing obligations, and more than 1.1 million tourists received the service or returned their money. At the same time, over a half of tour operators last year fully met their obligations towards tourists, and the tour operator market avoided mass bankruptcies.
Currently, the amount of debt remaining is less than 5 billion rubles. In the first quarter of 2022 alone, tour operators reduced their debt by almost 2 billion rubles — from 7 billion rubles to 5 billion rubles.
