The Russian government has prepared a new plan to support the tourism sector of the economy due to the virus and fall in oil prices

The plan developed by the authorities is divided into four units. This is support and provision of basic necessities of the population; support of especially negative affected economic sectors; support of small and medium-sized businesses; system-wide measures. An anti-crisis fund of 3 billion euro was created to implement the support plan.

Avia and travel companies experience the most serious negative impact. A separate package of support of them includes:

∙ deferral of tax payments

∙ no contribution to the reserve fund of the tour operators’ association and no contributions to personal liability funds of tour operators

∙ state guarantees for loans restructuring and payment prolonging

The losses to air companies because of flight cancellation are planned to be reimbursed.

The tourism sector of Russia is mostly represented by small and medium-sized businesses. Therefore, the following apply to the majority of companies in this field.

Support measures for small and medium-sized businesses:

∙ deferral of insurance premiums starting this March (30% of the salary)

∙ soft loans and guarantee support programs

∙ a deferral for leasing state and municipal property for three month

The economic effect of current events cannot be predicted at the moment, so the package of implemented measures will be extended if necessary.

Thought the tourism sector holds the support as non-sufficient, the measures generally were very welcomed by Russian travel professionals.