Rostourism wants to ban Booking in Russia
The Department of Tourism and Regional Policy of the Ministry of Culture asks Rosturizm to analyze the initiative to ban Booking in Russia. This is reported in the response letter of the Ministry to the initiative of the head of the tour operator “Own tourist service” (SVITS) Sergey Voitovich.
A month ago, S. Voitovich sent to the Ministry of Culture a proposal to ban the European Booking service in Russia in the form of retaliatory sanctions from the European Union and the United States.
S. Voitovich believes that the development of the Booking service in Russia displaces domestic tour operators from the “territories” of hotels, since individual reservations are given to Booking. 70% of the market is monopolized and controlled by a Western corporation.
For a long time there are questions to Booking, TripAdviser and Airbnb from specialists of the domestic travel industry. Indicative was the withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation Airbnb: the company closed the office in the Russian Federation due to the peculiarities of the legislation. “If they are now shutting down this LLC, then all the money and information will now be abroad, and this limits the capabilities of the Russian authorities,” he said.
Western online services do not regulate Russian legislation, and because of this, they have a competitive advantage: at lower costs, they charge consumers low prices, but do not protect tourists, and can influence hoteliers.
In Turkey, this problem was resolved: a local court suspended Booking in the country. The decision to block was taken at the suit of the Association of Travel Agencies of Turkey (TURSAB), which accuses the service of violating competition law and harming local travel agencies.