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Uruguay opened its borders for Russians, but they are not coming yet

08:07, 30 сентября 2011

Uruguay has become one of the countries that a Russian can travel to without a visa. Sergey Lavrov, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Russia and Louis Almago, his Uruguayan counterpart have signed a mutual visa waiver. It happened at the 66th UN General Assembly session in New York City. However, Russian travel agents think that the visa-free regime is not likely to gain popularity to the country.

A poll carried out by RATA-news showed that travel agencies were having a hard time determining any tourist flow from Russia to Uruguay, even though this South American country has been represented on our market as tourist destination for years. Maria Muminovich, the Head of Sales of the Tour Express company says, that Uruguay always comes in combination with other South American destinations, for example Argentina and Brazil. “The flight to South America takes 14 hours and it’s not cheap. Therefore, tourists usually try to cover as many countries as possible during one trip. I doubt whether the visa waiver will make someone fly across the world just to see Uruguay”, - said Mrs. Muminovich. We need to remember that until now Uruguay along with Paraguay have been among a few South American countries that the Russians needed a visa to enter. This fact complicated the work of travel agents, as Russian tourists can visit most South American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Ecuador) without getting a visa.

Dmitry Saakov, the Head of Tourism of the Carribean Club company also confirmed that Russian tourists are just passing acquaintances with Uruguay, and this tendency will hardly change even through the visa application procedure cancellation. The tourists will just have more leisure opportunities, said the company spokesman.

Dmitry Arutyunov, the Head of Art Tour company also doesn’t expect extensive tourist flow. “There are excellent opportunities for beach holidays in Uruguay in contrast to Argentina. But I still don’t think that visa waiver will force Russians to go in Uruguay’s direction. There may be some increase due to day-trips”,- said Mr. Arutyunov.

Irina Tyurina, the spokeswoman for the Russian Union of Travel Industry, summarizing the views of the travel agents, said that the development of tourism contacts between Russia and Uruguay not exclusively depends on visa regime. According to her, Uruguay doesn’t promote itself on the Russian market. Russians will continue to regard Uruguay as an addition to the “main dish” if the authorities of the country continue to hold this “silent position”.

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