Franchising instruments as a factor of tourism development in the Russian Federation

The paper studies the features of the development of the tourist industry in Russia focusing on franchising in tourist services. The tourism services sector worldwide is undergoing big changes associated with the development of information technology and a general increase in competition. Today we can observe two opposite processes: on the one hand, tourism services are accessible from year to year by an increasing number of individuals, on the other hand, the tourists are moving away from the services of tour operators. There is a general expansion of the tourist market, increased competition, increased spending on marketing, there is a need for continuous updating, trade secrets and know-how are developing, while there is a decreasing the life cycle of the participants of the tourist market. All this creates the need to bring together organizations and the creation of cooperative relations in their various forms and types. The article considers the brief history of the development of tourist franchising in Russia, reflects the structure of franchising market of tourist services, the organizational structure of the franchise in the tourist industry, as well as the place of tourist services franchise in the general classification of the forms of franchising. The article discussed in detail the specifics of the type of franchise-related features of tourist businesses in Russia. Special attention is paid to the issue of pricing in the activities of tour operators, as well as its impact on the effective functioning of franchise networks. On the whole franchise is regarded as one of the most viable areas of diversification in the field of tour operator and travel agent services. The relevance of such issue raises due to the crisis in the Russian outbound tourism, the occurrence of which can lead to a significant reduction of professional participants of the tourist market, the reduction of employment in the sector, reducing tax receipts.