Over the past week, government agencies have made several decisions affecting trends in the tourism sector. Let’s start our review with them.
The government proposed, and the State Duma supported, an increase in the fee for issuing a new generation passport (with an electronic data carrier) by 20% from July 1, 2024. Now a biometric passport costs 5 thousand rubles, and from the summer it will become a thousand more expensive. A similar passport for children under 14 years of age will rise in price from 2500 to 3 thousand rubles.
Ambiguous, according to the travel industry, the bill is being prepared in the State Duma for the second reading and is expected to be considered in December. According to the proposal of the parliamentarians, it is proposed to allow daily rental of apartments only after obtaining the consent of at least 75% of other owners in an apartment building. According to experts of the tourism industry, 75% is a protective measure and it is unrealistic to collect such a number of permits.
Of course, it is necessary to remove the private sector from the gray zone, but even in Turkey, where strict (as local media write – draconian) regulations have been introduced for short-term apartment rentals since January 1, 2024, the landlord needs to collect 25% of the signatures of the tenants of the entrance, and not the entire house.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has closed the Consulate General of Greece in Moscow. Tourists were worried whether the closure of the Consulate General would affect the process of issuing Schengen visas, but, as explained in the embassy, any additional complications for applicants will not bring downgrading the status of the consular service. There was a consulate general, the consular department of the embassy became, visas were issued and are being issued.
To China via Amur
Navigation on the Amur River on the international passenger service on the Blagoveshchensk – Heihe line ended on November 3 due to the ice formed – the Russian ship could not dock in Heihe. In the off–season and winter, hovercraft perform the crossing, but their capacity is 10 people. And the ship has 200. In addition, the Russian carrier had problems, and it was able to put only one vessel on the route. The Chinese carrier offers its services, but the cost is four times more expensive than that of the Russian ones.
As a result, about 300 Russian citizens accumulated on the Chinese side, who demanded that the authorities “fulfill their obligations for transportation.” The Russian consulate hinted to them that they could not wait for the weather at the coast, but use other crossings, which, of course, is much more expensive, but it is guaranteed to work, however, the queue at the ferry did not respond to calls and did not resolve.
Only on November 11, the remaining 152 Russian citizens were returned from Heihe to Blagoveshchensk by buses over the Kani-Kurgan–Heihe automobile bridge. Since passenger traffic on the new bridge is not officially allowed yet, only freight traffic is open, and it is not equipped with passenger checkpoints, then the removal of stranded tourists is a one–time humanitarian action.
Disassembly with landing on the field
Details have become known why the Central Office of the Federal Air Transport Agency forced to redo the report with the results of the investigation of the landing of the Ural Airlines aircraft on a wheat field. The document of the West Siberian Territorial Administration of the agency revealed 15 errors and contradictions. For example, it is claimed that the decision to leave for a spare airfield was made without calculating the required amount of fuel for the flight to Novosibirsk. And most importantly, perhaps, the report does not draw conclusions about the “unacceptably low level” of training for pilots who committed “reckless actions.” The Federal Air Transport Agency considered the recommendations in the report insufficient to prevent such landings in the future.
Ratings and trends
One of the domestic travel planning services analyzed hotel reservations by the service’s customers in October and November 2023. and he calculated that Petrozavodsk and Ryazan showed the most impressive results in Russia: in both cities, the number of hotel orders doubled.
Cities in Asia have become significantly more popular abroad: the number of bookings in Kuala Lumpur, Pattaya and Shanghai has more than doubled.
And another travel planning service, together with a large bank and a leading tour operator (TO), analyzed tourist flows from May to September 2023. It is noted, in particular, that the growth in the number of tourists has led to an increase in domestic tourism spending by 31% – up to 840 billion rubles. Living and travel expenses increased most significantly – by 37%. The real increase in travel expenses, adjusted for inflation, was 15%.
The leaders of popular destinations within the country have not changed over the year: Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi. The regions with the largest increase in tourist money inflows are the Rostov and Murmansk regions and the Republic of Dagestan.
Turkey has become the most popular destination abroad, both for independent and organized tourists. Kazakhstan, Armenia, Egypt and the UAE are also popular. Most notably, there is an increase in demand for holidays in Thailand and China, which occurred against the background of an almost zero base in 2022.
They are at the door, they are at the window
The European Parliament raised last week the seemingly solved problem with the confiscation of personal property of Russians and called on the European Commission to “reconsider its interpretation of sanctions, which leads to the seizure and confiscation of personal belongings and vehicles for personal use. Excessive compliance discredits the goals of sanctions and the sanctions themselves as a tool.”
However, it is not worth expecting any global changes towards easing the sanctions regime – the resolutions of the European Parliament are purely advisory. But the deterioration of conditions is happening right now on the Finnish border. It should be noted, however, that the ongoing escalation has long been irrelevant to tourism, so let’s describe the situation briefly. According to the Finnish authorities, since August, there has been an increase in the flow of refugees from Somalia, Yemen, Syria and other countries who apply for asylum from the Russian border. Therefore, the Finns closed 4 (the most convenient from St. Petersburg) of the 9 border crossings.
Interesting data, by the way, is provided by the European Commission on Tourism (ETC): the number of foreign tourists in Finland and the Baltic States is still 30% lower than in pre–crisis times, although the travel sector in Europe as a whole has almost recovered after the pandemic – the number of arrivals from abroad in January – September this year is only by 3% less than in 2019. And tourism in Serbia and Montenegro showed the most impressive dynamics.
Visa-run and Border-run
The news that Kyrgyzstan has canceled the visa-ran is more about relocants from the Russian Federation than traditional tourists. We, in fact, will not waste the details of the cancellation, but there is a reason to understand the terms. The fact is that the action, which in many countries is called “visa-run”, came from the English expression visa run – literally “to go for a visa” – travel from country A to country B in order to get a visa for country A and return to it. But the action that was canceled in Kyrgyzstan, it would be more correct to call “border run”, also from the English expression border run – literally “run to the border” – a trip from country A to country B in order to get a new stamp allowing you to legally reside for some time in a particular state, to do this, it is enough to cross the border and immediately return back. Moreover, Russia and Kyrgyzstan have an agreement on visa-free travel, so there was no need to chase for any visa, but they had to run to the border.
Covid is everything
Six countries have completely abolished covid entry measures at once – Cuba, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ukraine, Turkmenistan and East Timor.
In general, judging by the statistics of the IATA (International Air Transport Association), there are a few countries in the world where there is still an irreconcilable struggle against covid. Russian tourists are interested in even fewer of these countries. So, in Mauritius and the Maldives, it is required to fill out an online declaration on the website, in Saudi Arabia, passengers with a tour visa are required to have insurance covering covid, in Myanmar – a questionnaire and insurance covering covid.
Cooking News
Eating dog meat is a long-standing tradition on the Korean Peninsula. For example, in South Korea there are approximately 1,150 dog farms, 34 slaughterhouses, and about 1,600 restaurants serving dog meat.
The Korean practice of eating dogs is criticized for its cruelty from abroad, in addition, this tradition does not arouse understanding from the younger generation of the country. Therefore, the ruling People’s Power party calls for “putting an end to social conflicts and contradictions around the consumption of dog meat by adopting a special law.”
They want to adopt the relevant law by the end of this year. It plans to phase out the industry within three years.
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Источник: argumenti.ru
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