GATS in Regulating International Tourist Services

Abstract

Considering the strongly marked tendency of internationalization of services market in recent years the leading role of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in governing international trade in services is certain. As today foreign access to the Russian services market including Russian travel services market is among the four main areas of talks on Russian accession to the WTO it is important to explore the GATS’ fundamental principles, obligations and disciplines and its influence on Russian travel market further development. The liberalization of Tourism market and removal of barriers to the growth of Tourism under the GATS has to facilitate higher tourism inflows, trade and investment. The agreement covers all internationally-traded services including travel services, but the question of a special Annex on Tourism to the GATS still remains undetermined. As the GATS contains multilateral rules and commitments covering Government measures which affect trade in services the objective of each Member is to protect its national providers of travel services.