THE RESEARCH OF PERSPECTIVES OF INTRODUCING VOLUNTARY TOURIST TAX IN KALININGRAD REGION

In Russian practice of tourism development the resort fee is an actual topic for research among economists and lawyers. Nowadays, the resort fee seems to be a destructive tax, due to the current world crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic and consequent stopping of the touristic season and decreasing of touristic flow in many of Russian regions. As an alternative solution for financing of the tourism infrastructure in Russian regions, it is proposed to examine prospects of a volunteer regional tourist tax. Foreign practice shows that the modern tourists and local residents are ready for making voluntary contribution for development of tourism, and thus neither the tourists’ willingness degree nor the importance of these financial flows should be underestimated. The purpose of this study is to examine the prospects of introducing voluntary tourist tax in Kaliningrad region, based on identifying the degree of willingness of tourists to voluntarily pay the tax for restoration and development of the tourism infrastructure of Kaliningrad region. A survey of more then 1000 tourists visited Kaliningrad region in 2019 was done for the research. The study revealed: 1) tourists of Kaliningrad region are willing to pay a voluntary tourist tax (66.3 %) and the amount of funds collected should not be underestimated (tourists are willing to make even more than the stated amount of fee); 2) the characterization of collection as “voluntariness”, immediately solves many problems of the resort collection functioning in the Russian Federation, and the skepticism about the voluntary collection is completely refuted by this study and foreign practice; 3) voluntary tourist tax can be fully considered as a full-fledged promising alternative to the resort tax in the Russian Federation.

resort tax, sustainable tourism development, tourism industry, tourism development, touristic fee, voluntariness, voluntary fee, tourism, tourism infrastructure, willingness to pay.

Tishchuk M. O., Bairamkulov B. A., Nazymok A. A., Shchepkova I. V. The research of perspectives of introducing voluntary tourist tax in Kaliningrad region. Business. Education. Law, 2020, no. 4, pp. 148–155. DOI: 10.25683/VOLBI.2020.53.429.