DEPUTIES WILL PROTECT TOURISTS FROM TOUR OPERATORS BANKRUPTCIES

The parliamentarians of the State Duma of the Russian Federation intend to take Russian tourists under protection, providing them with new tools of financial protection in the event of bankruptcy of tour operators. For this purpose, on February 16 the profile committee of the State Duma supported a draft law, initiating the adoption of serious amendments to the current law on tourism.

As the chairman of the committee, Boris Paikin said in an interview with Russian Newspaper that the initiative might be related, in particular, to the cases of various force majeure circumstances, which will include bankruptcy cases.

If the law is passed, Paikin believes that the new rules will become high-quality consumer protection tools in the tourism market.

Representatives of the Duma Committee on Physical Education, Sports, Tourism and Youth Affairs believe that compensatory mechanisms will be able to reimburse tourists not only for significant expenses that they have to bear additionally in such cases. The law will also provide for cases of compensation for possible damage in situations when provided services are of poor quality or are not provided at all.

One of the reasons for the adoption of the bill was the bankruptcy of a number of large tour operators that happened in recent years. In a situation where insurance funds are not enough, and the usual leverage does not allow to reimburse tourists for losses, additional tools are needed to solve the problem.

The document stipulates that a special register of travel agencies, which will become a subsystem of the existing register of tour operators, may appear in Russia.

A valid contract between the agent and the operator will be confirmed by the presence of an entry in the registry, while the absence of such a deal will complicate the possibility of getting into the registry for a random intermediary who misleads the client.

The consequence of this will be the material liability of the tour operator for the agency with which the contract is concluded. At the same time, one of the signs of bad faith in the activities of the agency will be the absence of its entry in the register. For such travel agents, sanctions in the form of administrative liability will be introduced, says Paikin. Thus, a client who buys a voucher from an agent whose record is in the register will be able, in the event of financial problems with the intermediary, count on compensation for possible damage from the operator.

Paykin does not conceal the fact that one of the consequences of the adoption of the bill will be greater transparency of the market for the supervisory authorities. Rosturizm will be able to check the operators of travel services and travel agencies more efficiently, knowing exactly where the travel agency is sending its clients.