IF THERE IS NO KARMAN BORDER..

The tourism sector is very vulnerable. Its well-being directly depends on various natural disasters – floods, earthquakes, tsunamis. Of great importance in the tourist attractiveness of a country is also the stability of the internal political situation, the guarantee of personal security and the absence of military action. The tourism industry is suffering from economic crises. The absence of special offers and “burning” foreign travel services on the domestic market, the lack of demand for many New Year routes and at the same time the financial inaccessibility of a number of popular destinations of mass tourism. These are the main consequences of the financial crisis for Russian travel companies. The first signs of a decline in demand for foreign trips are manifested now, on the eve of the New Year holidays. However, the fate of tour operators’ programs for the spring period also raises some concerns among specialists, since Russian citizens may prefer to save as much as possible on trips abroad until the summer season. In addition, the decline in tourist flow abroad was impossible to compensate, as before, at the expense of corporate clients who organized abroad events on the system of “team-building” – trainings on the formation of team spirit in the team. The reason is one: after all, corporate travel refers to non-core expenses, and therefore companies will save on them in the first place. As a result, now, by mid-December, in the market of tourist services in the segment of foreign tours, the following situation has developed: some Russians, having booked New Year tours in September-October, are forced to abandon the trip, suffering some losses in the form of payment of the compensation amount for refusal; and the other, b&# 243; most of them, while delaying the registration of tours in anticipation of discounts or other “anti-crisis” offers of tour operators. At the same time, the latter category of tourists also risks staying at home during the New Year holidays, since they no longer have time to obtain a Schengen visa, the processing of which usually takes at least three weeks. However, as noted by many tour operators, the decline affected mainly low-budget mass foreign travel. In the segment of expensive tours, the situation has not become worse: wealthy fans of exotic countries (primarily these are destinations such as Mexico, Maldives, Cuba, Goa, as well as various sea cruises) still do not save on luxury holidays. In fairness, it should be noted that the state does not remain aloof from the economic problems of small businesses that arose as a result of the financial crisis. In particular, the Government of the Russian Federation has developed a so-called “anti-crisis” package of measures with financing of about 8% of GDP, of which more than 30 billion rubles will be allocated to support small businesses. On December 10, 2008, the Russian Union of Travel Industry held a practical conference for representatives of small and medium-sized businesses “Crisis and measures of the Government of the Russian Federation to overcome it in relation to the tourism industry”, the participants of which discussed the prospects for the development of the Russian tourism industry in the context of the financial crisis. Among the main issues discussed are whether the domestic tourism industry will survive the crisis and what the tourism industry will expect in the coming years. According to Alexander Pochinka, participants in the tourism market should not go out of business or lose their market share. Travel companies should form their own anti-crisis programs and restructure their business, including in order to be able to take advantage of tax benefits. Meanwhile, this warm winter, Russian ski resorts can compete with European ones. The fact is that in recent years, more or less prosperous in financial and economic terms, new tracks and ski centers were opened in the suburbs, the Middle strip of Russia, on Baikal; and many well-known sites of ski tourism in the Urals, North Caucasus and Altai were intensive work on their re-equipment. These works were partially funded by the state under the federal target program "Development of physical culture and sports in the Russian Federation for 2006-2015", but bó most of the investments were private capital. As a result, by now the ski resorts of Bashkiria, the Chelyabinsk region, the Altai Territory, the North Caucasus and the Elbrus region have acquired a completely new look - high-quality service, artificial snow-making systems of slopes, high-speed multi-seat lifts produced by leading Western companies. And the infrastructure of ski resorts of the Krasnodar Territory, completely modernized according to international standards during the preparation of the city of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, is not inferior to Western European ones. What else does our skier need? Elena joke, Based on the portal of the Turinfo Information Agency (www.tourinfo.ru), the online magazine PROHOTEL (www.prohotel.ru)