11/08/2019 16:42

The Emirates in grief

[IMG=18775-4405] Document reception for visas to the Emirates restarts on the 14th of January. Therefore tourists who have flights on the 17th and 20th of January will have to pay $80 for urgent visas, that is $30 more than a standard tariff. We remind that issuing visas to the Emirates was stopped on the 4th of January due to the death of Dubai sheik Maktum Al Maktum. The whole country is in a forty-day mourning – all governmental institutions are closed, including emigration offices, which at the moment deal only with urgent visas. According to General Director of ‘Art-tour’, Dmitryi Artyunov, anyway everybody expected visas service to work in a different regime due to the Muslim holiday celebrated on the 10th of January. Therefore this fact did not affect the travel market significantly. But other operators mention drop in demand caused by visa issuing problems. ‘Flight load for the nearest two weeks is quite low at the moment. We still have time to fill the flights on the 17th and 20th of January but the flight load on the 10th and 13th of January is 20–30% lower in comparison with last year’, said Sergey Ovchinnikov, sales director of ‘Space Travel’. In general, the mourning period did not influence the travel business. All city services, transport, restaurants work in a normal regime. There is no live music and belly dances in clubs and restaurants as during this period all entertainment is banned including the planned concerts of Anastasia Stotskaya and Filipp Kirkorov in Burj Al Arab hotel. Market players point out that this destination has never been considered a country of nightlife; the sea and shopping are the main priorities for tourists. There will be traditional lotteries and discounts despite the fact that the question about Dubai Trade Festival planned for the 4th of January is still open. According to Sergey Kanaev, director of the Russian office of travel representation of Dubai, there is no official information about the Festival. Nevertheless, festival margin has been cut already. For example, for city 3* hotel it is $15–25 per day. But there is no reason to expect considerable discounts, think the experts interviewed by ‘BANKO’.