Travel sales in Russia with cashback may resume by March 2021. This was stated in an interview with TASS by the head of Rostourism Zarina Doguzova on Thursday, December 24.
“Taking into account the technology itself, the process is still quite complicated, I think it would be more realistic to restart the program in the first half of the year,” she said.
Doguzova noted that Rosturizm expects to restart the program closer to March, so that tourists “can plan the spring, May holidays, early bookings for the fall.”
In her opinion, the resumption of active international tourist flows is unlikely to begin earlier than the second half of next year.
She stressed that in general, the turnover of the tourism industry is highly dependent on inbound flows. Such flows, she said, will not recover until 2022.
“And if we talk about such active (international) tourist flows, I do not think that this will happen before the second half of next year,” Doguzova said.
The head of Rostourism believes that under a favorable scenario, it may take the whole of 2021 to return domestic tourism in Russia to pre-crisis indicators, but everything will depend on the epidemiological situation.
On December 21, Rosturizm announced that the turnover of the Russian tourism industry by the end of this year will decrease by 60% compared to last year.
During a big press conference on December 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to extend the cashback program for next year.
In August, the Russian government launched a program to support domestic tourism. Citizens could receive a subsidy for buying a tour or paying for hotel accommodation in all regions of the country. Later, the program was extended until January 10, 2021.