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Polish Consulate makes tour operators work at night

08:07, 25 ноября 2011

For the last two days the Consular Department of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Moscow, is trying to sort out the complicated visa situation for winter vacations, as it has promised to operators. But this efforts don't seem to bring any tangible result, regret the tour operators.

 

Because of the daily passport admission quota set by the consulate, tour operators can`t pick a date for a submission sooner than January 10, 2012. That means right before the New Year the tour operators are afraid to sell tours to Poland, because they`re not sure if they will be able to provide visas for their tourists. More than that, thousands of tourists, who have already paid for their tours, don`t have visas or even their documents applied. This situation will primarily affect those who chose to go to Europe by bus, since Poland is the basic transit country from Russia to the EU. The consulate claims the lack of staff to be the prime reason for this situation.

 

Last Monday, as a result of meeting with the representatives of more than 50 tour operators, the head of the consulate service Mikhail Grechilo promised that in two days he will inform every company individually what part of the requested amount of visas the consulate is to provide. Since Tuesday the consulate online appointment system is open for short periods of time to check in to the closest dates.

 

The problem is that this system isn`t able to give personal access to every company. So, if it`s open for checking in, then it`s open for every certified operator. In the current complicated situation tour operators` “specially trained” members of staff are literally on duty near their computers checking the system every minute to get an open spot. Eventually, when the system opens for one company, the others, who caught the moment, hastily check in their own tourists.

 

To avoid this, tour operators were suggested to fill in visa applications after the workday ends. But it didn`t do any help. For example, instead of 150 spots given by the consulate to one of the accepted companies it could use only 40, all the others were snapped up by those “duty-boys”. Then it was decided to open the system at nights only – from 22.00 till 8.00. Tour operators are confused: first, they have to ask their employees to work at nights, second, the amount of these employees should be enough to fill in 150-250 application forms. And still there`s no guarantee that the company will have a chance to use all of the given spots - “duty boys” are keeping watch. More than that, according to the rules, tourist`s documents with true signature on them should be handed over to the consulate on the next day after filling in the visa application form in the online system. Operators doubt if it`s possible to do all that overnight.

 

“We don`t have problems of this kind with any other Schengen country. We gradually collect the whole tour group`s documents for the consulates and then hand over the passports, all at the same time. As for Polish visas, this year we began to fish out dates in the consular online system back in October. As soon as we get the passport, we start finding a date to hand it over to the consulate, get two more – and we`re monitoring the online system again. On November, 17 we could hardly make an appointment for December, 20,”- reported the president of one of the companies.

 

It`s needful to say, that tour operators have already had problems with obtaining Polish visas in previous years, but usually in the middle of December. Last year Polish diplomatic service managed to process the larger part of the documents by sending some of them to the Consular Division of the Embassy in Saint Petersburg, still there were “deprived” tourists left. This year Polish consular staff in Saint Petersburg are helping out their Moscow colleagues again – they`re ready to start receiving passports from Moscow on November, 25.

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