MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. The Russian authorities will allocate additional 4.7 bln rubles ($62.7 mln) on the tourist cashback program until June 30, head of the Federal Tourism Agency Zarina Doguzova said in a phone conversation with reporters.
"Today the government has decided to allocate additional funds for tourist cashback program in the amount of 4.7 billion [rubles]. This will allow us to continue with the current stage of the program, when tourists can go on a trip to any region of the country until June 30. They can buy trip vouchers until June 15, that is, another month and a half. Additional financing will make holiday trips more affordable for another 1 mln of our citizens," she said.
According to Doguzova, the two billion bln rubles ($26.7 mln) that were allocated for the program earlier were used in almost a month.
"The program is very popular: tourists save a significant amount, and the mechanism of automatic refunding to the card is very convenient and understandable to people. In total, only this spring, more than 700,000 people were able to travel around the country, and last year more than a million tourists took advantage of the program," she said.
Since its launch in August 2020, more than 1 million Russians have used the cashback program, which is aimed to encourage domestic tourist trips. Almost 4 billion rubles ($53.4 mln) were refunded to tourists. In total, tours and accommodation were purchased for almost 20 billion rubles ($267 mln). In 2020, as part of the first two stages of the program, Russian tourists were paid a total of over 1.2 billion rubles, and about 350,000 people took advantage of this support measure. Currently, one can buy a tour or accommodation with cashback until June 15, and go on a trip until June 30 of this year.