11/08/2019 16:17

Dark Prospects for the French Destination

[IMG=20649-6427]Tour operators that specialize in excursion tours to Europe point out problems in the French Consulate affected their business as many excursion programs in Europe involve Paris and other French cities. Owing a long visa issuing period travel companies do not have time to prepare document packages for their clients. Artem Kozlovsky, Commercial Director of Inters, commented: ‘as a rule inexpensive bus tours are not booked well in advance, therefore there is little time to prepare documents’. Moreover, a tour becomes practically unprofitable if a group of tourists consists of fewer than 40 tourists, specialists say. As a result some travel market players have to send their ‘French’ clients to colleagues that have bigger groups. According to tour operators the best way to solve the current problem is to adopt changes to excursion programs. Thus, Karen Goncharov, General Director of DSBW, said: ‘we had to reduce a number of days in France in favor of Germany and other European countries that allowed us to avoid applying for visa to the French Consulate as visas are issued to that country where tourists spend most of their trip’. Meanwhile, experts emphasize that such a variant is to effortful – it is not enough to simply change a program: in order to get visa in the Consulate a program must be included in the official catalogue. Moreover, according to Olga Sanaeva, Director of Ancor, ‘tourists who decided to stay in France for the most of their time will hardly be satisfied with changes in favor of, for example, Germany’. Meanwhile, prospects are still dark: problems in the Consulate of France will affect the tourist flow to the country for some time.