Ilya Umansky, President of the Russian Travel Industry Association, has proposed the creation of a tax fund similar to the export tax and aimed at supporting domestic tourism.

According to Gazetem.ru, this tax fund would collect money from each citizen who organizes a tour abroad. This proposal was formulated on the basis of existing problems with financial guarantees of tour operators.

“As an alternative to the existing instruments, a tourist tax could be introduced into the state budget from each realized sale of tours abroad, which would be paid by the consumer, similar to the tourist tax,” President Umansky told the Interfax news agency. Dividends from payments to this fund could be directed to the development of domestic tourism infrastructure.”