The Federal Agency for Tourism of Russia will be abolished, and its functions will be transferred to the Ministry of Economic Development.

The corresponding decree on Thursday, October 20, was signed by President Vladimir Putin.

As follows from the document, the initiative is needed to "improve public administration in the field of tourism and tourism activities."

In addition, innovations are designed to increase the efficiency of the development of the tourism industry and optimize the structure of federal executive bodies, the decree says.

According to the government, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has already approved changes in the structure of the Ministry of Economics in connection with the transfer of authority to develop tourism to the department.

Thus, the number of deputy ministers of economic development has been increased from 11 to 12, and the number of departments from 35 to 37.   

Now the Ministry of Economic Development will be responsible for the development and implementation of state policy and legal regulation in the field of tourism.

Along with this, the ministry will control the activities of tour operators, as reported by the press service of the department.

“The tourism economy has a large multiplier effect, bringing together 40 activities.

More than 50 sectors of the national economy and over 2.5 million people are involved in the creation of a tourism product.

At the same time, the existing modern challenges require the consolidation of efforts, prompt response, synchronization of all resources, effective management and system solutions,” the message says.

The ministry also added that they have all the necessary powers to increase the pace of development of the tourism sector in Russia.

At the same time, the President's decision will improve the efficiency of the implementation of the Tourism and Hospitality Industry national project, which involves 17 federal departments and all regions of the country, as well as the business community, the department noted.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko will continue to oversee the direction of the tourism sector in the government.

According to him, the innovations approved by the head of state will help to maximize the concentration of resources on the challenges and priorities of the industry.

“The best practices developed by the Federal Tourism Agency, the experience and competencies of the Ministry of Economic Development will allow not only to maintain, but also to increase the pace of achieving the goals set by the President and the Prime Minister,” TASS quotes the words of the Deputy Prime Minister.

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It should be noted that Rostourism was created back in 2004 as a result of the transformation of the Federal Agency for Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Until 2008, the department was directly subordinate to the government, after which it was transferred to the Ministry of Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy.

In 2012, the functions of the agency were transferred to the Ministry of Culture, and in 2018, to the Ministry of Economic Development.

However, two years later, the department was again subordinated to the Cabinet.

“We have changed hands many times as an industry, so we are not the first to experience such changes.

In recent years, Rostourism has done a lot to develop the industry, for which we are grateful to him.

In any case, we will continue our work on laws, regulations, and measures to support the tourism industry, ”said Olga Sanaeva, vice president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry (PCT), in an interview with RT.

However, market participants do not expect major changes in the industry.

This opinion, for example, is shared by the general director of the national tour operator "Alean" Ilya Umansky.

“Since Dmitry Chernyshenko remains the curator of Russian tourism, I think that there will most likely not be any fundamental strategic changes.

The general course of development of the tourism industry will continue, ”the interlocutor of RT suggested.

In his opinion, the actions of Rostourism played an important role for the tourism industry and largely saved this segment of the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.

So, under the current team of the agency, headed by Zarina Doguzova, a national tourism project was launched, and the state began to subsidize charter routes.

At the same time, the country launched a tourist cashback program, which has become one of the most effective measures to support the tourism sector in the entire post-Soviet period, Umansky recalled.

“That is, there were really many useful initiatives and decisions.

Therefore, we rely on the Ministry of Economic Development to analyze them, adopt them and continue to use the most useful practices,” concluded Ilya Umansky.