The Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation proposes to expand measures to support the tourism industry to speed up the construction of hotels and increase the number of rooms in the Russian Federation. In the next two years, within the framework of the national project, it is proposed to allocate 8 billion rubles to the program of grant support for the construction of modular hotels (subsidies for 50% of the cost of a room up to 1.5 million rubles per room), highlighting two segments of support. The first is small family hotels with up to 10-15 rooms, the second is large complexes from 100 rooms, including those based on operating hotels.
As Minister Maxim Reshetnikov noted during the meeting of the President of the Russian Federation with members of the Government, the tourism industry has almost reached the “pre-Covid” level. The minister stressed that new growth points for domestic tourism are emerging in the country, which requires an increase in the number of rooms throughout the country. According to him, the priority tasks for the regions are the preparation of land plots for the construction of hotels, campsites, work with investors and federal state support tools.
In addition, in a pilot mode, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, together with the SME Corporation, launched a loan program for investment projects of small and medium-sized businesses from 50 million to 1 billion rubles at a rate of up to 4%. For 4 months, companies in the tourism industry received 74 loans worth 7 billion rubles, which is almost 20% of the total amount of loans issued under the program. This year, the program limit will be increased to 100 billion, which will support more tourist facilities.
Another proposal of the Ministry of Economic Development was the improvement of the concessional lending program within the framework of the national project. It is planned to focus it on the creation of hotels in the 3* and 4* segments, reduce the marginal cost of a room and set it only for the subsidized part, depending on the category of hotels, as well as set territorial priorities – special economic zones of a tourist-recreational type and new territories.
In addition, to support large system tour operators, the Ministry of Economic Development proposes to exempt domestic and inbound tours from VAT. Separately, at the request of the business, proposals are being prepared to create the so-called “heavy” related infrastructure – cable cars, theme parks.
existing mechanisms to support entrepreneurship in the field of tourism, especially in the field of modular hotels, which already this year made it possible to receive 250 new comfortable rooms in the republic. We will continue this program, but we will also pay special attention to the transport accessibility of Crimea, increasing the rolling stock, daily flights, primarily from the main transport hub today, the city of Moscow. This is one of our priority tasks, which we will work out with the federal center,” said Vadim Volchenko, Minister of Resorts and Tourism of the Republic of Crimea.