Holidaymakers in Stavropol Territory are calm about the resort fee

The introduction of an additional fee for hotel guests in the Stavropol Territory did not affect the number of tourists, although not all of them knew about it. Local analysts had argued about whether the new fee would help in improving the infrastructure of the Caucasus Mineral Waters.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that for the past two months of the resort fee in action, tourists in the Stavropol Territory paid almost 38 million roubles. However, about 3% of resort guests – about 2500 people – refused to pay the fee.

According to the authorities of the Stavropol Territory, the first year of the experiment with the fee collection should bring a total of 180 million roubles into the budget. It is planned to spend the money on the improvement of the regional resort infrastructure.

The employees of holiday homes, interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, said that they experienced no problems with the collection of the resort fee – vacationers are calmly paying it; and no mass refusals from rest in hotels were observed.

Vasily Balditsyn, the head of the Stavropol office of the Russian Union of Journalists, believes that the introduction of the resort fee was a useful initiative, the result of which will be noticed by local residents and tourists.

However, Valery Ledovskoy, the chairman of the Stavropol branch of the "Yabloko" Party, has recalled that the experiment with the introduction of the resort fee was held back in the USSR time and proved to be inefficient.