About 1 million people are expected to travel from Russia to Europe as tourists in 2022, which is 15 times lower than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the head of the Russian tourism watchdog Rostourism, Zarina Doguzova, said on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th September, 2022) About 1 million people are expected to travel from Russia to Europe as tourists in 2022, which is 15 times lower than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the head of the Russian tourism watchdog Rostourism, Zarina Doguzova, said on Tuesday.
"Most European countries have just lifted pandemic restrictions, meaning that practically all these years it was impossible to enter the territories of these countries with tourist purposes. So now there is no need to talk about a critical fall. The fall will essentially remain at the same level as it was during all these years. If in 2019, before the pandemic, we had about 15 million people spending holidays in European countries every year, this year the tourist flow will be about 1 million at its maximum, which is almost 15-times drop," Doguzova told journalists on the sidelines of international Otdykh tourism forum.
Doguzova also said that the decision of some EU countries to close the entry to Russia on September 19th will have almost no effect on tourist flow, as well as the decision to stop the agreement on a simplified visa regime from September 12th.
"During these pandemic years, tourist exchanges with European countries were practically at a low level. The drop was 95%, so these changes will not be felt by many people. If we talk about the ban on entry, we are talking about the countries of Eastern Europe, if we talk about Western European countries, they do not prohibit entry for our citizens in their countries," Doguzova added.
On September 6, the EU Commission adopted a proposal to fully suspend the visa facilitation agreement with Moscow. The suspension entered into effect on September 12. The decision complicated visa application process for Russian citizens and imposed more restrictions for multiple entry visas. At the same time, the proposal did not provide for a total ban on the issuance of visas to the country's citizens, as requested by several EU member states.
Last week, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania made a decision to deny entry to Russians even with valid Schengen visas. The decision will come into force on September 19. Due to this measure, Finland expects more Russians to come to the EU through Finland.
On September 9, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia would respond to EU visa restrictions for Russians, without harming Russia's interests.
