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11 December 2018, 13:07

Tentative plans to require foreign travel agencies to register company in Belarus

MINSK, 11 December (BelTA) – There are plans to require foreign travel agencies to register a legal person in Belarus in order to work in the country. The relevant amendments to the Tourism Law were mentioned by Belarusian Deputy Sports and Tourism Minister Mikhail Portnoi during a roundtable session held in the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus on 11 December, BelTA has learned.

The creation of protection mechanisms is the primary concern. “We would like foreign travel agencies to operate in Belarus only as a resident of Belarus and only in compliance with Belarusian laws. We are going to have some insurance mechanism as a safeguard in place and so on. Even if a force majeure event occurs, people will not suffer and the travel agency will not just disappear. Protecting the consumer is the primary task,” said the official.

Apart from that, plans have been made to separate the responsibility of travel agents from the responsibility of tour operators. Tour operators bear the bulk of responsibility now.

Mikhail Portnoi noted that the need to update the law had been prompted by the situation around the Russian major travel agency Natalie Tours. In his words, the Belarusian Sports and Tourism Ministry and the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism are working to return money to Belarusian tourists, but it is a complicated process.

Natalie Tours sold about 400 tour packages in Belarus. They were later annulled.

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