Kuban hoteliers expect decline in tourist inflow after introduction of tourist tax

If the tourist tax is introduced, the flow of tourists will decrease, said the owners of hotels in the Krasnodar Territory interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot". Tourists say they are not ready to pay even 50 roubles a day, as it seriously raises the price of leisure. Meanwhile, the adoption of the law on tourist tax may take place before March 1, 2017, the Territorial Ministry of Resorts has reported.

On November 23, 2015, it became known that the Ministry for North-Caucasian Matters had drafted a bill on imposition of the resort tax "for using the resort infrastructure." It was planned to collect up to 150 roubles per day from each tourist vacationing in Mineralnye Vody, Kislovodsk, Pyatigorsk and Yessentuki. The collected funds were planned to be used for landscaping the resorts.

Apart from the Krasnodar Territory, it is planned to introduce the resort tax, since March 1, 2017, in the Stavropol and Altai Territories, in the Crimea and Sevastopol.

Dmitri Bogdanov, the Director General of the "Znanie" (Knowledge) Sanatorium-Resort Complex in Adler, believes that at drafting the bill, nobody had asked the opinion of tourist businessmen; also, in his opinion, the bill violates the article of the Constitution dealing with the freedom of travel. For the development of the tourist branch, the tax collected from tourist operators should be quite enough – this load is higher than in other countries, he said.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.