On March 27, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin instructed the regional authorities to suspend from March 28 to June 1, booking seats, reception and accommodation in boarding houses, rest homes, sanatoriums and hotels located in resorts. According to the document, already living guests can stay in the resting places until the end of the voucher, but they cannot extend it. It is impossible to check in newly arrived guests, the only exceptions are those who have arrived on a business trip - they must confirm the purpose of their visit, for example, by providing a direction for a business trip.
According to the Federal Tourism Agency for 2018, there were 1,830 sanatorium-resort organizations in Russia, 700 of them are state-owned. Most of them are located in Crimea, Stavropol, Altai and Krasnodar regions. The government's order extends to facilities throughout the country. On the ground, it is carried out by decrees of the heads of regions, and some leaders supplemented them by introducing restrictions on their territory that were not there before.
For example, the decree banning the reception of new guests in all accommodation facilities, signed by the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, also provides for the restriction of air and railway traffic within the region, the transition of catering establishments to takeaway and delivery services, as well as the closure of shopping and entertainment centers.
Hotels, sanatoriums and children's camps will be closed throughout Russia until summer
The document came into force on March 28 and will be valid until April 5 - the days declared by the president to be non-working. The decree of the governor of the Altai Territory (where, for example, the federal resort city Belokurikha is located) does not provide for transport restrictions, and does not apply to ordinary hotels.
All closed
All state resorts, sanatoriums and boarding houses, as well as most of the large private ones, submitted to the decree.
“Since March 28, we have not received new guests, those who have been are gradually leaving. Now the download is about 60%, but by April 7 it will drop to 2%. From April 10, we will prepare the complex for conservation, ”explains Hrant Babasyan, General Director of the Crimean resort complex Mriya (one of the largest in the country and the largest in the region).
“In March, the good sanatoriums of the resort of Sochi were full, ours was also full,” says Dmitry Bogdanov, general director of the Sochi sanatorium “Knowledge”. - Now the guests are starting to leave: on Monday 87 were checked out, 430 guests remained - this is about 70% of the full load. We suggest clients to postpone bookings for April and May, as there is no clarity on these periods ”.
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Until June 1, the operation of the Rosa Khutor resort has been suspended: lifts, infrastructure and public recreation facilities are closed. Resort guests living in hotels at the time of the release of the government decree automatically switched to self-isolation without the opportunity to walk around the resort, food is delivered to their rooms. All guests who have booked and paid for accommodation from March 28 to June 1 are offered to cancel their booking or postpone it to a later date, as indicated on the resort's website.
The North Caucasian resorts Arkhyz, Veduchi and Elbrus closed the ski season until April 6. The money for the ski passes purchased for these dates can be returned.
In the Krasnodar Territory, only small private hotels and guest houses are now available for booking. On Booking.com, there are slightly more than 3,000 relevant offers (usually about 10,000). There are no large chain hotels available. All additional services of the Kempinski Grand Hotel Gelendzhik (spa, swimming pool, restaurants, etc.) are closed, from the 28th we do not accept new guests and we are postponing reservations, confirmed at the hotel. After the restrictions came into force, about 10,000 vacationers left the region per day, this is about 15% of the total, according to the website of the regional administration.
Than it threatens
The instruction to actually suspend the work was received by accommodation facilities of both state and private property. At the same time, none of the market players surveyed by Vedomosti received any explanations from which sources the managers and owners should cover the costs of a non-operating facility. By default, it is assumed that the owners should bear all the costs of fulfilling the government order on their own, say the interlocutors of Vedomosti.
Seasonality is a key feature of the resort business.
Accommodation facilities earn the main money from March to October, and in winter they spend it on preparing for the new season. Therefore, now no one has the savings to pay employees' salaries and maintain facilities for two months.
Even Mriya, owned by Sberbank, has no "safety cushion", Babasyan confirms. A break in work for two months carries very large losses, if the ban on placement lasts longer than June 1, then the losses for many may be irreparable, the manager adds.
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A month of downtime can bring losses that the sanatorium needs
will fight off for a year and a half, and two months of downtime will require restoration within 3-5 years, says Bogdanov. In a pessimistic scenario - if the sanatorium remains closed all summer - the recovery period may take up to 7-8 years. “If we open on June 1, then our losses on one object may amount to up to 100 million rubles. In the region, losses are expected in the billions,” Bogdanov sums up.
Apartment owners refuse daily rent
But apart from losses and the threat of ruin for the owners, the current crisis is fraught with a social explosion. The authorities assume that the owners will continue to pay their employees. But not everyone has this opportunity: someone has already closed their facilities and fired people, someone will inevitably cut staff. “We have now sent some of the employees on vacation - while keeping their salaries. But how to proceed further is not clear, - shares Bogdanov. - We carry out all the decisions of the authorities, but at this stage we solve our problems on our own. All sanatoriums have an off-season behind them, and this is a potentially very socially dangerous situation: neither employers have savings to pay salaries to employees of a non-working sanatorium, nor people. "
“One of the main questions for all business owners now is to retain staff. For all managers, this is pain, everyone really worries about people. The industry employs about 3 million people. If a significant part of them will be left without work (and by no means all will be able to save people jobs and wages), then most people will be left without a livelihood, because the majority have no savings. This is a huge social problem for all regions, ”Babasyan warns.
But in addition to social problems, the exacerbation of staff problems can lead to problems in the industry, where people are everything. To achieve the current level of service, a huge amount of effort, money and time has been invested in training and retraining of personnel over the past 10 years. If you dissolve your employees now and lose them, you risk being thrown back a few years.
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In recent weeks, appeals to the federal authorities have been published by the Federation of Hoteliers and Restaurateurs of Russia, top managers of hotel and restaurant companies, the National Union of the Hospitality Industry (OSIG), the Association of Hoteliers AMOS, which unites hoteliers and representatives of the spa sector in Sochi and the South of Russia, etc. ...
The letters talk about the primary forms of support for the industry, without which it will not survive. As the president of OSIG, Babasyan lists the most essential. First of all, this is the replacement of a deferral (for loan payments, etc.) for a vacation. (This measure will show people that there is some light at the end of the tunnel - yes, now it is difficult, but you can tolerate and when the situation with the pandemic normalizes, there is a chance to return to normal work, Babasyan emphasizes.) Secondly, the cancellation of insurance payments is up to autumn or until the end of the year. Also for some organizations it is necessary to consider the possibility of compensation for payroll. The latter is especially important in order to prevent a social explosion. “For some properties, especially important, valuable, unique or in a particularly difficult situation, individual assistance may be considered. Our approach is as follows: there is a set of general measures and there should be an opportunity for individual assistance, "Babasyan sums up.
According to Bogdanov, among the necessary, first of all, exemption from taxes and rent for land for the period from March to May 2020, as well as a loan for five years at zero interest in the amount of 10% of the company's turnover last year, as they did, for example, in Switzerland.
The second most important point is salary subsidies. This money is needed right now - the profitability of the spa business is low, so practically no one has savings for payments, emphasizes Bogdanov.
The list of measures proposed by the president and approved by the government does not include these items now. At the time of publication of the article, no answers were received to questions sent by Vedomosti to Rosturizm.