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According to specialists in the Spanish destination, on the November 8th additional requirements were introduced for the standard packet of documents necessary for receiving a travel document to Spain.
An official letter from the General Consul of the country addressed to accredited agents, informs that the following papers were added to the previous list of documents: a copy of all pages of the current passport (4 double pages on one A4 list) and other travel passports, current or terminated, where there are stamps, marks and visas of any countries. However instead of all pages of the internal passport you should present only those pages that have any information or stamps in it.
Also, according to new rules in case if applicants are relatives or have close relationships, they should state it. It is not allowed to include in one booking or in one voucher people who are not related even if they take the same route.
According to the official letter, all these changes occurred ‘to systematize the processing of visas’ and ‘for convenience’. The General consulate of Spain refused to give any more details.
Experts say this reference to ‘convenience’ must have been in relation to the work of the Consulate only as, with increased the amount of paperwork necessary for the processing of visas, tour operators will have more work to do. With such an amount of photocopies it will be easy for them to be lost. ‘When an incomplete package arrives from other regions, there is sometimes not enough time to send it back for revision’, says Natalia Kravtsova, senior manager of ‘Vremya-tour’.
Tatiana Chuvilkina, deputy director of PR, is more optimistic in her evaluation. ‘There definitely be more work for operators but there might be a smaller number of refusals’.
