Russian Union of Travel Industry sent an official letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia with a serious concern of the dramatic drop of tourists arrivals from Germany because of the new complicated Russian visa formalities.
Starting on November 1, 2010 Russia toughened the rules and process of obtaining the Russian visa for the German citizens. The Germans that plan to visit Russia for business or tourism purposes must present bank statement or other guarantees that can prove that the guest is able to return back home (original reference paper from the employer with the information on the regular income), private company registration papers (original or copy), papers confirming owing property. To apply for a business visa the owners of private companies must provide an original and a copy of the registration papers of the company, and managers and other staff should have an official certificate with the position in the company, monthly salary level and the purpose of the business trip to Russia.
St. Petersburg that welcomes the majority of the foreign tourists in Russia was the first one to raise the alarm. North-West division of RST received a lot of appeals from Russian and German travel companies complaining that the number of requests from Germany decreased dramatically and some booked tours are being cancelled. German Union of Touroperators for example mentioned in its letter that additional bureaucratic complications hinder the usual way of the trip organization and could jeopardize the decision of the tourists and businessmen from Germany to visit Russia. Besides that it’s not clear why the rules were being changed so fast and unexpectedly. Russian travel agencies also receive a lot of letters from their German colleagues. Here is a quote from the letter from „Wolff Ost-Reisen”: “We are specialized on group tours to Eastern Europe. Our clients – bus companies, travel agencies. We don’t get any requests for packages to Russia from them anymore. And some already booked tours are being cancelled. And we should not forget that some of our clients are preparing their catalogues for next year at the moment and they don’t know how to present the Russian visa requirements in a proper way. They think that these rules exceed all sensible standards. None of their clients are ready to present to the travel agency staff the information on the income or pension benefits level. The Germans do not want to share such confidential information with anyone for security reasons.»
German touroperators need to plan what their managers that worked with the tours to Russia and had some special training to work with this segment would do if there is no demand for such tours anymore. “There is a special department in our company that sells packages to Russia. All these managers are well-educated. If we don’t have any requests for such tours anymore we would need to fire all these people,” the letter from Wolff Ost-Reisen says.
The incoming travel companies of St.Petersburg think that these new rules would lead to the serious decrease of the tourist arrivals from Germany. Russian touroperators as well as other companies from the travel infrastructure would have financial losses. And this could lead to the decrease of the contribution of travel industry into the budget of the city and as a result into the budget of the country.
Moscow touroperators totally agree with these conclusions. General director of “Akademservice” Leonid Isakovich told RATA-news that his company already felt a measurable drop of 25–30% of requests for tours from Germany to Russia. Vice-president of cruise company “Ortodox” Yuri Kravets that accommodated 25 – 30 thousand German guests in Russia every year confirms this estimate.
RST letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says: “We understand and welcome the reciprocity principle which is used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. But it’s important to mention that Germany is the biggest supplier of tourists to Russia in Western Europe.” Russian statistics office recorded that in 2008 our country was visited by around 333 thousand German tourists. In the crisis 2009 year this figure even increased a bit and reached almost 334 thousand arrivals. World Travel Monitor gave even more significant data, according to their calculations Russia in 2009 was visited by 523 thousand guests from Germany.
