Russia to set up national hotel booking service, similar to booking.com

The Russian government plans to set up a national system for booking hotels and tourist services. The national system would be similar to the well-known Booking.com. Russian Federal Agency for Tourism, Rosturizm and the Ministry for Communications were entrusted with the task, the Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote.

The main objective of the national system, specified in the department is to promote lesser-known regional resorts in Russia.

Earlier, it was reported that Booking.com may have problems on the Russian market. This may occur due to innovations in the Russian legislation on personal data, according to which personal data of Russian citizens should be stored on servers in Russia. The company declared its readiness to solve the problem, although it is not clear whether it will be able to stay on the Russian market. "We are closely watching the situation and developments related to Russia's initiative to pass the bill on the storage of personal data of Russian Internet users on Russian servers," spokespeople for the company said.