Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree transferring the Federal Agency for Tourism (Rosturizm) to the Ministry of Economic Development, Izvestya reports.
The document was published on Russia’s official portal for legal information on September 17, the report says.
“I decided to put the Federal Tourism Agency under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia,” says the document signed by the head of state on September 14.
The decree was adopted “with a view to improving public administration in the sphere of tourism,” it said. The agency was previously under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture, where it was transferred following a switch of state functions between Dmitriy Medvedev and Putin in 2012.
The head of state also decided to delegate the functions of elaborating and implementing state policy, implementing priority directions, and state supervision in the sphere of tourism to the Ministry of Economic Development.
“In Russia, tourism has traditionally leaned either toward the direction of culture or to the direction of sports. Probably the origins of this situation originated in Soviet times when tourism was going on either in the recreation area of workers or out in nature, at camping trips. We will continue to act on the development of tourism in our country,” said the head of Rosturizm Oleg Safonov, commenting on the decision.
