11/08/2019 16:48

Finnish warranties are given time

[IMG=18550-4138] On the 7th of December Vladimir Strizhalkovskiy, head of the Federal Agency of tourism gave a speech at the state Duma with a report on two main positions worrying the travel market participants: the need to launch a mechanism of financial warranties and facilitation of the visa process for foreigners arriving in Russia. The topic of financial warranties was raised several times in the Federal Agency of tourism, but the exact terms of discussion of the project with the government of the Russian Federation were not defined until recently. Now the situation has cleared up: according to Nadejda Nazina, deputy head of the Federal agency, the relevant amendments will be submitted for consideration by the government during this December and presented to the state Duma in January 2006 (the details are available in ‘Hot line. tourism' 12 magazine). As for the visa issue, as BANKO discovered, Mr. Strizalkovskiy announced in his report about the intention to, first of all, reduce the terms and the cost of processing the entry documents for foreign visitors. The project is currently under consideration in the Ministry of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation. Secondly, the head of the federal agency of tourism has mentioned the negotiations between Russian and Japan about the visaless tourist exchange. Operators admit that the forthcoming changes are vital. Any barriers connected with visa formalities negatively affect the flow of tourists', says Evgeniy Lipets, deputy general director of ‘Akademservice'. Meanwhile, experts believe that the main problem is another issue. Fisrt, according to a confidential source, for travel firms receiving foreign clients it is hard to receive accreditation in the Ministry of foreign affairs. Besides, specialists note that nobody set the terms of processing Russian visas, but it is usually slowed down by the Ministry without any apparent reason. There are no special requirements for receiving entry documents and its cost is not considerable: depending on the country from which a tourist applies it is 30-70 euro, this problem rather has a political nature, comments the anonymous expert. ' When innovations will come into force is still unknown. Experts interviewed by BANKO believe that in the near future they should not be expected. ‘It is a complicated issue decided on intergovernmental level so it requires time', believes Sergey Voitovich, general director of ‘SV travel group'. Read details in the nearest news.