MOSCOW, September 17. /ITAR-TASS/. This year turned out to be much worse for Russian tourism business that the financial crisis-stricken year of 2009 when the decline in outbound tourism has made 15-20%.

The demand for tourist trips has dropped by 30-50% this year, press secretary of the Russian Union of Tourism Industry Irina Tyurina told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday.

“After first 4-5 bankruptcies (of travel agencies), tour sales almost came to halt,” Tyurina said. “The lack of circulating assets and tough competition on the tourism market when the offer exceeds the demand triggered the domino effect that caused the collapse of several more companies,” she added.

Around 130,000 Russians were affected by bankruptcies of 14 tourist operators. Meanwhile, 56,000 clients of tourist operators had problems with payment for hotel accommodation and return tickets.

However, the current situation on the Russian tourism market cannot be called unprecedented. “Other countries, primarily several European states, passed through similar ‘purge’. For instance, more than one hundred bankruptcies took place in Britain in 2008-2010, 41 companies went bankrupt in the country in 2010 alone. Twelve operators of different levels have gone bankrupt in France and ten in Poland over these years,” she recalled.