Putin has found a way to increase the responsibility of travel agents to customers – RBC

Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting of the presidium of the State Council on the development of tourism in the Russian Federation

Photo: TASS

Creating a single register of travel agencies will make the market more transparent and free him from the one-day firms, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the presidium of the State Council in the Crimea, on the development of tourism .

«The creation of such a registry will help to ensure control, transparency of the whole process cycle – from the production of the tourist product to its implementation, will set a high professional requirements and corporate standards in the tourism sector, to strengthen the responsibility of agents to final consumers,” – Putin said (quoted by TASS).

He said the registry could deal with one of the public organizations of tour operators.

The question of increasing the responsibility of tour operators began to be discussed in the last year, when in the July-September bankrupt several large tour operators. The government responded by introducing a bill to the State Duma, which proposes, in particular, to introduce the institution of self-regulation for the agency business as well as the creation of a compensation fund for the tourists.

The bill should have been taken before April 30, but the document was not adopted until the end of the spring session. Wrote RBC, the final version of the bill has slowed Economic Development. It is expected that before the autumn session of Parliament the government will develop and present a common position agreed amendments.

In contrast to the tour operators whose activities are strictly regulated (there is a federal register of tour operators, which leads Rosturizm), a travel agent can be virtually anyone . To do this, he needs to sign a contract with a tour operator and start selling its tours. The Agency would simply disappear with the money customers are not placing their tour operator.

The first attempts to regulate the travel retail were undertaken in 2011. Then the deputies proposed to oblige the agency to work only in the name and on behalf of a tour operator. It was proposed to assign responsibility for substandard services from travel agents to tour operators. Recent strongly opposed the initiative, and so far they have been able to defend its position.