The Presidential Library held discussions on how and where Russians will have vacation

The Presidential Library hosted the first council of experts in the field of tourism industry. The event was organized jointly with the "Rossiyskaya Gazeta".

Speech at a meeting of competent authorities of the tourism industry was not only about amendments to the Tax Code that entered into force in 2019, the essence of which is that employers can compensate vacation at Russian resorts to their employees and their close relatives. Decentralization of transport communications, regional and federal subsidies to tour operators, tax remissions - there were many issues for discussion. Participants from Novosibirsk, Barnaul, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg and Simferopol joined the discussion via the video-conferencing mode.

The state took seriously the support of domestic tourism. It is expected to increase the tourist flow to Crimea thanks to the newly built bridge across the Kerch Strait. As for the statistics of the last season, according to the general director of the tour operator "Dolphin" Sergei Romashkin, it is as follows: the leader of Russia is the Krasnodar Territory (last year it was visited by about 15 million people), followed by Crimea (about 5.5 million ), on the third place - St. Petersburg (4 million tourists).

Executive Director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia Maya Lomidze believes that the development of domestic tourism requires a strategic approach. In 2019, the federal program for the development of tourism will be approved, in which specific aspects of state participation are expected to appear, aimed at supporting domestic, still unrealized tourism opportunities in Russia. It is about subsidizing travel companies offering domestic tours - not only from the federal budget, but also from the regional ones.

As for the amendments to the Tax Code, which will now allow employers to purchase vouchers for employees worth up to 50,000 rubles per person, these expenses will reduce the taxable base for corporate income tax. According to the participants of the meeting, this tax relaxation can be used by both large enterprises and small ones - 50 thousand rubles will not suffice for a distant tour, but it will be enough, for example, for several trips of the day off.

On this day, an excursion to the Presidential Library was held for participants attending the event in St. Petersburg, during which they got familiar with the history and architectural features of the building, learned about the main activities of the library, its information and technological resources. They also received readers' tickets from the Presidential Library.  

This excursion was especially interesting for the participants of the meeting of the Expert Council for Tourism, since the Presidential Library, being the largest information and cultural center of Russia, is being actively developed as a tourist site.

Located in the historical center of St. Petersburg, in the building of the Holy Synod, built in the second quarter of the XIX century by the project of the outstanding architect Carlo Rossi, it includes electronic reading and exhibition halls, a conference hall, multimedia and television complexes. The Presidential Library arranges tours through the historic Synod building and modern library halls and thematic ones on temporary exhibitions.

The Presidential Library has been also participating for a long time in the large-scale cultural and educational project "Open City" implemented by the St. Petersburg City Branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments and the Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments.

"Open city" is a long-term program of free excursions for citizens and visitors of the city to historical places of St. Petersburg with a visit to cultural heritage sites.

During the time of the participation in the project (since September 2016), the Presidential Library was visited by 34 groups - more than 750 people. Only last year, more than 400 people took advantage of the free tours. In total in 2017 excursions in the Presidential Library were visited by more than 10 thousand excursionists.

It is expected that in due course the library's specialists will familiarize Petersburg residents and visitors of our city not only with the interiors of the Synod, but also with the ensemble of the Senatskaya Square in general: the architectural masterpiece of Rossi - the complex of buildings of the Senate and the Synod, as well as the monument to Peter the Great of Falcone.