In Novosibirsk travel agencies draw into a “grey business”

The number of participants of the Novosibirsk market of tourist services in 2016 decreased by 30-60% depending on the segment. As explained the Chairman of the Novosibirsk Association of tourism organizations Dmitry Mikitchenko, in the region there were 700 travel agencies in 2014, in 2015 - about 600 and now - about 420. “De facto, most of these travel agents have “moved out from legal business”, that is, they cannot pay for office and maintain all the necessary infrastructure. They operate now as the private agents", - said Mr. Mikitchenko. Over the past year, he said, the number of tour operators in the region decreased from 17 to 7. "This does not mean that the company went out of business, but they have lost the right to conduct the tour operator activities, have been excluded from the federal register of tour operators and "Turpomosch" association. One can hardly expect them to recover on the market in the same status". According the estimates of the Chairman of the regional branch of Siberia Tourism Union Natalia Kutsevol, the reduction of the number of market participants in tourism segment is observed in all the regions of Siberia: "the planned reduction of the number of players is noted from 2014, when we saw the series of bankruptcies due to the economic situation". At the same time we did not except in near future the further reduction of travel agencies in connection with changes in the law, which came into force in 2017 and reinforcing the responsibility of the tour operators. "One of the conditions for out coming tour operators is the formation of personal responsibility fund with volume of 7% of sales. That is, if I have cash cycle of 200 million rubles, I must keep on deposit 14 million. Totally, in whole Russia we expect this year the reduction of the number of tour operators half or two times" - he added. According to the results of the performed charter flights from "Tolmachevo" airport in 2016, Thailand became the most popular foreign area (78.1 thousand visitors – the reduction is 7.7% against 2015), China (67, 7 thousand, + 319%), Vietnam (30.7 thousand, + 8%). The greatest decrease of passenger traffic noted to Cambodia (342 thousand, -77%), Turkey (20.6 thousand, -70.5%.). The highest growth is to Korea (3.7 thousand, + 74.7%). Cyprus (12.5 thousand, + 74.4%).