The Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) appealed to the government with a request to postpone the return of funds to tourists who refused to go to Crimea. The deadline is until the end of the year. 25 billion rubles are at stake.
"Official letters justifying the need to postpone the fulfillment of obligations on summer tours have been sent by ATOR to the Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko," the corporate publication Vestnik ATOR reports.
The point is that tour operators are asking for permission to postpone check—in dates or refund funds until December 31, 2026 without the risk of immediate collection - by analogy with the decrees of the Government of the Russian Federation that were in force during the pandemic and in 2022.
"The adoption of this decision is a matter of survival for tour operators, as well as hotels in the Republic of Crimea, since they do not have reserves to return such significant amounts to such a large number of tourists," the authors of the letter to the government wrote.
According to the ATOR analytical service based on information from tour operators and hotels, the volume of holiday cancellations in Crimea and Sevastopol by the end of June reached about 1 million trips throughout the market — taking into account bookings through tour operators, aggregators and directly in hotels and other accommodation facilities.
ATOR estimates that with an average check for a trip to Crimea at 45-50 thousand rubles the total volume of cancelled bookings is estimated at 20-25 billion rubles. Tour operators account for 5-7 billion rubles.
"These funds are not held by tour operators: they have already been transferred to hotels and are used for current operating expenses: renovation of territories, repairs, payment of wages, purchase of products and other needs. Instant refund of these amounts by hotels to tour operators is physically impossible. At the same time, the current legislation and the current situation as a whole exclude the possibility of reserving such a volume of funds from tour operators for domestic tourism. The demand for an immediate refund of funds for all canceled applications will deal an irreparable blow to hotels in Crimea and tour operators working with this direction," the letter from ATOR says.
They believe that a postponement until the end of 2026 will allow hotels and tour operators to return funds or provide equivalent rest faster and in a more predictable manner.
Earlier, ATOR proposed a package of additional measures to support the tourism industry of Crimea and tour operators. Among them — deferral and installment payment of insurance premiums and basic taxes, except VAT, for up to 6 months, a temporary moratorium on the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings against tour operators and hotels for a period of 1 year — until June 2027. As well as the allocation of subsidies for the payment of salaries to employees of the hotel sector at the rate of 1 minimum wage for two months, July and August, for each employee in the state.
As reported by EADaily , the mass attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the delivery of fuel to Crimea led to a shortage of gasoline and diesel fuel on the peninsula and a sharp restriction of sales at gas stations. Moreover, drone attacks on the energy infrastructure of the peninsula and in Crimea began another week with power outages. This immediately provoked a massive refusal of tourists to rest in the Crimea.