In the two weeks since the launch of the new stage of the tourist cashback program, more than 600,000 citizens have received discounts on travel across Russia.
The value was a record for such a short time.
This was announced on Thursday, September 15, by the head of the Federal Tourism Agency Zarina Doguzova.
“Trips were bought for 14.3 billion rubles, and the amount of cashback amounted to just over 2.7 billion rubles.
Thus, citizens used almost the entire amount allocated for the fall,” Doguzova said.
According to her, the number of bookings in the country has tripled on average.
At the same time, Krasnodar Territory, Caucasian Mineralnye Vody, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Crimea have traditionally been among the most popular destinations for tourists.
In addition, Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Altai, Baikal and Primorye are in high demand.
“Cruises were very popular in September, for autumn trips people mainly chose sanatoriums, good family hotels with warm pools and trips to atmospheric cities just to take a walk.
In addition to autumn trips, there were active bookings for ski resorts — the leaders were Krasnaya Polyana and Sheregesh,” added the head of Rostourism.
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© Alexander Astafiev
In general, the tourist cashback program significantly supports demand in the off-season, Zarina Doguzova emphasized.
This, according to her, has a positive effect on the level of employment and the number of jobs in the tourism sector.
Recall that sales of tours with cashback as part of the autumn stage of the program started on August 25 and ended on September 10.
Russians who bought a tour at a discount can go on a trip from October 1 to December 25, and on a cruise from September 1 until the end of navigation.
Under the terms of the initiative, the state reimburses citizens 20% of the cost of the ticket, but not more than 20 thousand rubles, and when traveling to the Far East, the amount of compensation is up to 40 thousand rubles.
The number of trips is not limited, but the duration of each tour must be at least three nights.
To receive a cashback, you need to pay for a ticket with a MIR bank card, after registering it in the loyalty program on the payment system website.
Money is credited to the card automatically within five days after the purchase.
“This is one of the most effective measures to support the industry that we have had in the entire post-Soviet period.
It showed a high degree of involvement of both tourists and tourism market players.
The reason for the popularity is the opportunity to save a lot on traveling around Russia.
Moreover, several stages have already passed since the launch of the program, so the action has become quite recognizable among the population, ”Ilya Umansky, vice president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, told RT.
"For the benefit of regions and businesses"
For the first time, the travel cashback program was launched back in 2020.
As follows from the materials of Rostourism, over the entire period of the initiative, more than 4.9 million people took advantage of its conditions, of which over 2.8 million — in 2022.
In total, the Russians bought tickets for 95.3 billion rubles, and the state returned them 18.2 billion rubles.
“The key goal of the program is to support the demand and load of tourism infrastructure in the regions during periods of a calendar decline in activity.
With the high seasonality that is observed in Russian domestic tourism, the action helps mitigate the decline in demand.
This, in turn, benefits both the regions and businesses,” Umansky said.
A similar point of view in an interview with RT was expressed by the first vice-president of the all-Russian public organization of small and medium-sized businesses "Support of Russia" Pavel Sigal.
According to him, the increase in the tourist flow has a positive impact on the budgets and economies of the regions, and also contributes to the development of local business and the service sector.
“The state sees great opportunities in the development of the tourism industry and, in order to make traveling around the country more accessible for different categories of citizens, introduces various programs.
Among them are support for air carriers, subsidizing the construction of tourism infrastructure facilities, including the cashback program.
Initiatives influence the promotion of tourism among the population,” Segal emphasized.
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© Denis Abramov
Today, approximately 86% of Russian independent tourists prefer to rest within the country.
This is evidenced by the statistics of booking air tickets of the Tutu.ru travel and travel service.
As RT was told in the company, now the main share of air travel falls on travel from Moscow to Sochi, St. Petersburg, Mineralnye Vody, Kaliningrad and Makhachkala.
In addition, routes from St. Petersburg to Sochi and Kaliningrad, as well as from Sochi to Yekaterinburg, are in high demand.
It is noteworthy that over the past year, the cost of air travel within the country has increased by an average of 7%, which is almost twice as low as the inflation rate in the country (about 14%).
Meanwhile, hotel prices, on the other hand, have fallen by more than 5%, OneTwoTrip, a travel planning service, told RT.
“In the current autumn period, the average cost of a one-way ticket in Russia is 4.8 thousand rubles.
A year earlier, in the same period, tourists made flights for 4.5 thousand rubles.
You can stay at a hotel this fall for an average of 5.3 thousand rubles a day, and in 2021, accommodation cost 5.6 thousand rubles, ”the press service of the service noted.