Belarus has finally started talking about the protection of tourism service consumers
The preparation of the draft law pursues, first and foremost:
- improvement of the mechanism for protecting the rights and legitimate interests of consumers of tourist services, taking into account the latest negative trends (bankruptcy and unfair practices of certain travel companies, non-reimbursement of funds to consumers, etc.);
- division of responsibility between tour operators and travel agents (currently, a travel agent, being an ordinary seller of tours, is fully responsible to the consumer, which is absurd, as a travel agent is solely engaged in selling tours, unlike a tour operator who books seats on transport and in hotels and provides other services).
In this regard, on the one hand, the draft law is intended to strengthen the mechanism for protecting consumer rights and, consequently, to enhance the role and responsibility of the tour operator by introducing methods for ensuring the fulfillment of the tour operator's obligations to consumers (voluntary insurance of tour operator's liability, bank guarantee, and tour operator's liability fund – at the tour operator's choice).
On the other hand, any burden on the tourism business must be justified and designed not to harm it, especially in the current conditions. Therefore, when choosing methods, the Ministry of Sport repeatedly studied foreign experience, primarily that of our neighbors (the Russian Federation, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Latvia, Ukraine, etc.), taking into account all their advantages and disadvantages. As foreign experience has shown, these methods are quite effective and applicable in our realities.
Throughout the year, meetings and consultations with the business community, representatives of government bodies and other organizations (Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Justice, Belarusian Association of Insurers, Regional Consumer Protection Society, etc.) have been and continue to be held on a regular basis.
The conceptual approaches to regulating the tourism sector, laid down in the bill, are supported by an absolute majority of tourism unions, with the exception of the Republican Union of Tourism Organizations, which most likely does not wish to fulfill its obligations to the consumer.
The conceptual approaches to regulating the tourism sector have also been agreed upon with republican state administration bodies and other interested parties and have not been changed at the present time.
And the coronavirus situation only confirms the most serious concerns that the tourism sector is undergoing changes, and the world is restructuring itself to the current situation, in which we must work "here and now," rather than wait for the end of the pandemic. After all, even today, individual destinations are open, and even today, a person who has bought a tour must be protected. In this regard, there are no grounds for postponing the adoption of the Law, in particular, the introduction of guarantees for tourists and the division of responsibility between tour operators and travel agents.
Current realities, on the contrary, suggest that the Law will be considered by the Parliament of the Republic of Belarus in the near future.
Official portal of the National Tourism Agency.