The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing intergovernmental agreements on visa-free travel with eleven countries.
According to Dmitry Gorin, vice-president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, Malaysia may be the most demanded this season. Without visas, it will also be possible to travel to Bahrain, Tobago, Trinidad, Mexico, Kuwait, Zambia, Barbados, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the Bahamas and Haiti.
Experts note that the visa-free regime will contribute to the development of bilateral travel between the Russian Federation and the countries of the Middle East. This is a fairly developed destination, where there are regular direct and tourist flights, and popular tours are actively sold there. With the introduction of a visa-free regime, the formation of new trips will be simplified and an increase in the reverse tourist flow is expected – from the above countries to Russia.
Gorin notes that the countries of Southeast Asia are important for expanding tourism opportunities:
“Countries such as Malaysia are very promising. Moreover, with these countries it is possible to restore air links fairly quickly and easily.”
He draws attention to the fact that the prospects for this direction can be judged from the experience of Thailand – the flow of Russians there is gradually reaching pre-pandemic levels.
Regarding Haiti and the Bahamas, Gorin noted that in this case transport accessibility plays a more important role than the visa regime:
“We don’t have direct air links with these countries, even with Mexico. Flights to remote countries are often two transfers and at least 24 hours in flight.”
Even if there is a visa-free regime, in his opinion, not many tourists will agree to complex flights, writes GreekReporter.
As it turned out, a passport with a double-headed eagle allows you to stay unrestrictedly for two weeks in an absolute monarchy overlooking the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea – in Oman. It’s easy and simple – fill out a form, upload a photo. The biggest problem is to pay money from the card that will be accepted. That is, not Russian. Visa comes in just a few hours.
Oman is in the 4th top ten countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita, ahead of both Latvia and Russia, and even some countries of the Old World, for example, Greece. Here, too, they know a lot about statistics and migration… Officially, there are 5 million inhabitants in Oman, and the locals say that in reality there are 4 million, of which only 2 million are locals, and 2 million are immigrants. There is a huge number of workers from India, Pakistan, the Philippines.
After the pandemic, Oman Air has been operating Moscow-Muscat flights since December 2022. The ticket price varies greatly depending on the time of purchase: the economy class Airbus A350 can cost both 500 and 1500 euros. The purchase takes place through aggregator sites operating in the Russian Federation. The direction is promising, and popularity it among Russians is growing rapidly.
Earlier, our publication talked about how, generous not so long ago for multivisas, Greece now he prefers to issue visas to Russians for specific travel dates. This does not mean that it is impossible to obtain a Schengen visa at the Greek embassy, however, it is much more difficult to do this when applying on your own – there are more refusals.
Last year, due to difficult logistics, there were few Russians in Greece. However, experts suggest that this year the situation will improve. Greece, according to politicians, literally sacrificed Russian tourists last year to support the sanctions. Therefore, accordingly, the tourist flow was low. Although those Russian tourists who rested in Greece in 2022 are satisfied and did not feel any negative attitude towards themselves.
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