RBC: The Ministry of Culture suggested prohibiting Booking.com reservation service in Russia

The Ministry of Culture sent a letter to Rosturism with an order to consider a proposal to ban the activities of the online reservation service of hotels, transfers and airlines Booking.com in the Russian Federation, RBC reports.

As it became known to the publication, the assignment was given by the Department of Tourism and Regional Policy of the Ministry of Culture. Rostourism should present his position on the issue of Booking.com in the Russian Federation until June 4.

Earlier, with the initiative to limit the work of the service in Russia, in response to anti -Russian sanctions, the head of the tour operator of his TS Sergey Voitovich made.

According to The Bell , the company "My Travel Service", which threw the idea to ban the work of Booking.com in Russia, turned out to be a contractor of Rostourism, and its leader - the creator of several analogues of this service in Russia at once.

In a conversation with journalists, he explained that he proposes to introduce a restriction on booking through Booking.com only Russian hotels and only for customers who are inside the country.

According to Voitovich, the restriction should not apply to reservation outside the territory of Russia, that is, Russian clients Booking.com will be able to continue to book hotels in other countries, just like foreigners will be able to book hotels in the Russian Federation.

Voitovich emphasized that, offering hotel, air tickets and transfers, Booking. Som is actually engaged in tour operator activities in Russia, but legally is not a tour operator and does not pay appropriate contributions.

“No Russian tour operator can compare with Booking.com because they have limited agreements with large international network hotels - Accor, Rezidor and Radisson. The Russian tour operator will not conclude such an agreement and get the conditions much worse. Therefore, Booking.com will now dominate the market,” Voitovich explained.

The Booking.com service, founded in Amsterdam in 1996, belongs to the American company Booking Holdings.

Booking.com service had previously been claims in Russia. The Russian travel agency, as well as the chairman of the Expert Council on Tourism under the Committee of the Council of the Federation of Social Policy, Igor Fomin, recalls RIA Novosti, addressed the Federal Antimonopoly Service , RIA Novosti recalls.

The essence of the claims was that the service prohibits Russian hotels to set up lower prices for their services in other sales channels.

The FAS ultimately did not find violations in the activities of the reservation service, because the fact of the dominant position Booking.com was not established on the Russian market.