The holding asks its foreign representative offices to become more active

VAO Intourist has subsidiaries of travel companies not only in the USA and Poland, but also in the UK (Intourist Travel Ltd), Canada (Intours Corp.) and Sweden (Fram-Resor AB), follows from the list of company affiliates published in April. The share of foreign representative offices in the holding's income should increase: the president of Intourist, Alexander Arutyunov, at a meeting with the directors of his subsidiaries, instructed them to become customers of charters to Russia.

"Intourist" will develop a strategy for its foreign assets before the summer, the holding's president, Alexander Arutyunov, told Kommersant. “The crisis forced us to pay attention to clearer interaction between all our structures,” he explained.

Back in Soviet times, Intourist opened its representative offices abroad, of which four companies are now owned by the holding. Thus, since last year, the holding’s reporting has mentioned the company Intourist Polska, and in the updated list of affiliates of OJSC “Foreign Economic Joint Stock Company “Intourist”” published last April, the Canadian Intours Corp., the British Intourist Travel Ltd and the Swedish Fram-Resor AB were listed for the first time . Intourist has been the controlling owner of all these companies since 1989-1990, the holding clarified. In addition, last year Intourist acquired for approximately $1 million 100% of the American Intourist USA Inc., which was also a representative office of VAO in 1930-1994.

So far, the contribution of Intourist's foreign subsidiaries to its incoming tourist flow (166 thousand foreigners in 2008) is not large, admits Alexander Arutyunov. Intourist could not clarify the share of foreign companies in the revenue of the entire holding. Meanwhile, at a meeting of the heads of its foreign representative offices held in Moscow last week, the holding set before them the task of becoming customers of charters to Russia. “For example, the Swedish Fram-Resor, which specializes in tours to Russia and Ukraine, today operates mainly in the b2b segment,” Mr. Arutyunov gave an example. “The company needs to establish cooperation with travel agencies in order to increase its volumes.”

The Intourist holding consists of four divisions: tour operator business, hotel management, transport services, retail sales. The main shareholders of OJSC "Foreign Economic Joint Stock Company "Intourist"" are AFK "Sistema" (65.1%), the Moscow government (25.04%), and GAO "Moscow" (8.75%).

Intourist Polska President Dariusz Wojtal confirmed to Kommersant that Intourist has set him and the heads of other subsidiaries the task of closer integration with the holding. “We are the largest host company in Poland working with the Russian market, but cooperation with the Moscow Intourist in this area, unfortunately, is minimal,” he admits.

On the Russian inbound tourism market, among all foreign representative offices of Intourist, the British subsidiary is primarily noticeable, notes KMP Group President Vladimir Kantorovich. According to Leonid Isaakovich, general director of the tour operator Academservice, in previous years Intourist Travel Ltd sent about 5 thousand tourists a year. “But in the next five years, charters in Russia are unrealistic,” he believes. According to Academservice, this season due to the crisis, the incoming tourist flow will fall by 15-20%.

Closer integration with its foreign assets will increase Intourist's income from tour operator activities, experts say. In 2008, when the holding continued to actively develop its operator business, its revenue, as follows from the reports of AFK Sistema, increased by 65%, to $616 million. But since the tour operator business has always been low-income, the operating profit margin decreased to 5% versus 5.5% a year earlier.

Sergey Kommersant-Sobolev

"Intourist" ordered a charter