The delegation of the State Council of Crimea took part in the Conference of the South Russian Parliamentary Association

CrimeaPRESS reports:

The delegation of the State Council of the Republic of Crimea, headed by Vladimir Konstantinov, took part in the XXXIX Conference of the South Russian Parliamentary Association, which takes place in the Astrakhan region. The key topic of discussion at the event was the development of the tourism industry.

According to the head of the Crimean parliament, for the southern regions this area is one of the priorities, providing revenue to the budgets of the constituent entities. It also stimulates and launches the development of related industries, essentially being a premium sector of the economy of the South of Russia.

The provision of tourism and recreational services carries a significant social charge. Our mission is to provide adequate leisure time and the opportunity to restore health to our fellow citizens from regions where there is no bright sun and warm sea. Especially in conditions when Russian tourists, for various reasons, have turned to domestic resorts. According to forecast data from the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the number of domestic tourist trips, after the restoration of the “pre-Covid” level of 70 million people in 2022, will continue to grow by 8–10% in 2023 and 5–8% until 2026.

Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that the active development of domestic tourism, especially in difficult modern conditions, is becoming one of the most significant places. He drew attention to the need to actively use the rich potential of the coast of the Black and Azov Seas, to carefully study the issues of creating large all-season federal resorts with modern comfortable infrastructure. It is the southern regions, including Crimea, that will have to fulfill the tasks set by the Presidentsaid Vladimir Konstantinov.

The Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Crimea noted that in Crimea the tourism sector is one of the strategic, priority areas of the economic complex.

We have about 11.5 thousand objects of history, culture and architecture, 284 museum institutions operate, 454 tourist routes and 188 display objects are open to the public. In Crimea there are 202 specially protected natural areas of regional and federal significance, in which more than 100 ecological walking routes are equipped.

In addition, there are 1,108 accommodation facilities in the Republic with a capacity of more than 160 thousand places, including 91 sanatoriums, 976 hotels, 41 children’s health camps. The total length of the coast suitable for organizing beach holidays is 452 km.

Since 2017, the key goals, directions and mechanisms for tourism development have been determined by the Strategy for the socio-economic development of the Republic of Crimea until 2030. For the purpose of its implementation, the Strategy for the Development of the Tourism Cluster of the Republic of Crimea until 2030 was adopted— said Vladimir Konstantinov.

According to him, the strategy includes the growth of target indicators until 2030: an increase in the tourist flow to Crimea by 3.5 times, an increase in the number of beds in year-round accommodation facilities from 63.4 thousand to 66 thousand places, an increase in the number of equipped beaches from 283 up to 460.

To ensure the comprehensive development of the sanatorium-resort and tourism sectors of Crimea, work is underway to create five tourist and recreational clusters, which are included in the State Program of the Russian Federation “Socio-economic development of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol”. The volume of investments in the tourism sector of Crimea since 2014 has exceeded 157 billion rubles (61 investment projects are being implemented, within the framework of which it is planned to create about 4.2 thousand jobs). To support the development of tourism, the tools of a free economic zone in the Crimea and Sevastopol are also used. Within the framework of the SEZ, 162 investment projects are being implemented in the field of resorts and tourism.

The comprehensive measures taken made it possible in 2021 for the first time in history to increase the number of trips to Crimea to 9.4 million trips per year. The share of direct revenues from the tourism sector in the republic’s tax structure reached 9.8%, and taking into account the multiplier effect, exceeded 25%emphasized the head of the Parliament of the Republic.

According to Vladimir Konstantinov, in connection with the establishment of a regime of temporary restrictions on flights to airports in the south and central part of Russia after the start of the Special Operation, transport logistics became more complicated. Previously, air traffic annually accounted for over 30% of all passenger traffic to Crimea.

This led to the strengthening of the role of rail, road, and multimodal communications. However, the tourist flow to Crimea over the 12 months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 decreased by 30% and amounted to 6.5 million people. The average occupancy of 1,108 accommodation facilities with a total capacity of more than 160 thousand places in 2022 did not exceed 36%. As a result, income from services provided by tourism enterprises over the past year decreased by 18%, the volume of lost income from these types of services exceeded 9.2 billion rubles.

The trend associated with a reduction in the tourist flow to the Republic will continue in 2023. But this is due not only to complex geopolitical circumstances.

In 2023, Russia did not extend the program for stimulating affordable domestic tourist trips (tourist cashback), which was an effective tool for developing domestic tourist flow to Crimea and other regions of the country. In our Republic, from 2020 to 2022, 517 accommodation facilities became participants in the programnoted the speaker of the Crimean parliament.

In addition, Konstantinov emphasized, the issues of legal regulation of the activities of guest houses have not been finally resolved. Now the draft federal law “On conducting an experiment in the provision of hotel services in guest houses” has been submitted to the State Duma. Conceptually, the bill is supported by all subjects of the Crimean tourism sector. However, the provisions of the bill need to be improved.

As part of the national project “Tourism and Hospitality Industry”, by 2030 the country plans to create 20 thousand new hotel rooms and construct modular non-capital accommodation facilities. The first facilities will be put into operation in 2023. However, without the construction of the necessary supporting infrastructure, tourism clusters in the regions of our country will not be able to achieve proper development.

Mas The main task in recent years has been the need to carry out shore protection and landslide prevention work, and preserve beach areas in the coastal zone of the Black and Azov Seas. They are also associated with the implementation of design and restoration work to recreate beach areas in Russia. Another promising area is cruise tourism, which today is one of the most popular and fastest-growing segments of the international tourism market. At the same time, today the intensive development of marine tourism is hampered by the unsatisfactory condition of the berth infrastructure.

The priority condition for the development of children’s tourism in Russia is the preservation and modernization of the infrastructure for children’s recreation and their health improvement. The last decade is characterized by a significant decrease in the number of organizations for children’s recreation and their health improvement. Nowadays, the sphere of recreation and health improvement for children is one of the lowest profitable sectors of the Russian economic complex.said the head of the Crimean parliament.

The Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Crimea noted that earlier, at the XXXVI URPA conference, an appeal to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin was unanimously supported to include in the federal budget for 2023 and for the planning period of 2024 and 2025 expenses for the implementation of a program to support affordable domestic tourist trips to organizations children’s recreation and their health through reimbursement of part of the cost of paid tourist services. However, the program was not extended to 2023.

A fundamental measure to stimulate investment activity in the tourism business was the decision to zero the value added tax rate. However, the zero value added tax rate does not apply to other additional services provided in accommodation facilities.

Vladimir Konstantinov proposed following the results of the XXXIX URPA Conference to take into account the following initiatives of the Crimean parliament:

— invite the State Duma to consider the possibility of taking into account proposals from constituent entities of the Russian Federation when preparing for the second reading of the draft law “On conducting an experiment in the provision of hotel services in guest houses”;

— to propose to the Government of the Russian Federation to consider the possibility of including work on the construction and reconstruction of sewage treatment plants, deep-water collectors in measures for the development of domestic tourism in Russia within the framework of the national project “Tourism and Hospitality Industry”, their synchronization with measures for the construction of new accommodation facilities and an increase in tourist flow ;

— development and adoption of a state program for the restoration, reconstruction and use of ports, berth infrastructure, hydraulic engineering and shore protection structures;

— subsidizing organizations engaged in maritime passenger transportation in the Azov-Black Sea basin for the renewal of the passenger fleet and landing stage facilities using federal budget funds;

— development of the law “On the organization of recreation and health improvement for children in the Russian Federation” and the state program of the Russian Federation “Development of the sphere of recreation and health improvement for children in the Russian Federation”;

— expanding the scope of subsidies for preferential lending to investors for the implementation of investment projects in the field of tourism to projects related to the creation and reconstruction of engineering infrastructure;

— resumption of the program to support affordable domestic tourist trips in organizing children’s recreation and their health through reimbursement of part of the cost of tourist services;

— establishing a zero rate of value added tax on additional services of accommodation facilities;

— creation of a Russian system for online booking of accommodation facilities, including in the languages ​​of foreign states committing friendly actions towards Russia.

These measures will allow us to preserve the industry and develop it in the current difficult conditions,” summed up Vladimir Konstantinov.

Photos and materials: press service of the Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Crimea.

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