Dmitry Gorin at All-Russia MICE Day, Rostov-on-Don

From 30 May until 1 June, Hotel Don-Plaza in Rostov-on-Don hosted this year's first All-Russia MICE Day. 100 experts and corporate clients from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Yekaterinburg and Simferopol took part in this large-scale event. Government authorities also attended the forum, including Maxim Papushenko, Russian Minister of Economic Development, Sergey Korneev, Deputy Head of the Federal Agency for Tourism, and Dmitry Gorin, Vipservice Holding CEO and Advisor to the Head of the Federal Agency for Tourism.

One of the points of the agenda was the Business Morning, a talk show hosted by Yulia Prokhorova from RBC TV. Yulia and the speakers discussed the development vectors of the MICE industry in Russian cities. During the discussion, Dmitry Gorin spoke about the new Russian Tourism Development Strategy.

'This is our strategy, our new life plan until 2035. We hope that all of our suggestions and notes for the Ministry of Economic Development and the Federal Agency for Tourism will be taken into consideration on 10 June.

It's important that we all understand: tourism is actually becoming an important industry. The previous insignificant 1.5–2% of GDP is set to grow to 6–10%. To achieve that, we have the necessary strategy and the support, which is very important. I would like to highlight a few incentives which should come to life with the implementation of the Strategy. It's valuable for any business.

First of all, simplifying visa procedures. This practice is already successful in the Russian Far East. Last year, 60 thousand tourists from abroad used e-visas for trips to the area. We hope that over time this will become a common practice in all cities of Russia. This year, Kaliningrad will join the programme. The Federal Agency for Tourism advocates for longer validity of e-visas. This has to be at least 14 days, rather than the current 8 days. E-visas should be extremely affordable or even free.

Costs are important for business. We hope that the Strategy will help implement all the discussed initiatives on subsidising, concessional loans and even the special tax terms we're currently working on with the Ministry of Economic Development. In terms of figures: we know how hard it is to get funding for building hotels and infrastructure objects, and how high the interest rates are. We aim to bring them down to 6.5%. Pessimists may say it's unrealistic, but some people felt the same way about e-visas.

Subsidising for domestic trips is already working successfully. Last year this figure was at 320 million roubles, and we will also have subsidies for inbound tourism of 821 million. And going back to my favourite subject of air travel, we still hope to get subsidised flights for tour operators.

Money, however, is not the only factor here. The backbone of our industry is all of us, the people behind it. We are professional travel organisers. So a lot of it depends on us. I believe that if all of our plans, or even just a part of them, come to life – the planned amounts for export and the money that should stay in the cities will be realistic. Especially given that the Strategy spans all the way to 2035', – said Dmitry Gorin.

Vipservice Holding realised the potential of Rostov-on-Don as a great place for holding the MICE forum a long time ago. The company started off by opening a call centre in the city for its corporate clients, and today Vipservice has hotels for business travellers of Rostov-on-Don, Hermitage 4* and Don Quixote 3*.