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Czech MFA declared war upon Russian travel market

08:07, 1 июня 2012

The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched an unprecedented move denying Russian tour operators accreditation. It will be stressed that the Czech Embassy and the Consulate are not to be blamed of as it was exactly the Czech’s MFA to cause it. Last week it was announced that seven tour operators were denied the accreditation, but it turned out to be worth: the unpleasant news affected tour operators in Moscow, Voronezh, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-don, Tyumen, Samara, Saint-Petersburg, Ufa and other cities.

 

Of course it’s up to the Embassy to decide if a tour operator should be denied the accreditation. But there should be strong indications as well. We don’t know whether they exist or not. The tour operators were denied accreditation without assigning any reasons, without claims, without pointing at any mistakes and basically without giving any comments. Therefore for two years! The Heads of the companies, who decided to find out what was the reason for sanctions, got a rather diplomatic answer from the Consular of Czech David Nova: the Consulate has no issues with the tour operators; we just execute the order of MFA.

 

Only one tour operator got a strange explanation about its attempt to obtain accreditation in both Moscow’s and other city’s Consulate and smarted for it.

 

The situation is unprecedented. Russian tour business has never faced such attitude before.

 

Well, as soon as the information got leaked to the press, the Czechs walked back and retrieved the accreditation to several companies. But not all the companies retrieved the accreditation and it was brought as a great honor. Anyway, the lucky ones were left a bad taste in their mouths.

 

All the leading tour operators are nervous as they’re afraid of further unexplained sanctions. It’s important that most of the companies have their own receiving companies in Prague and other cities. The accreditation denial is involves problems of both Russian and Czech companies. And of course their regional partners will have problems as well.

 

The Czech Republic is one of the most popular destinations among Russians. As for the results of 2011, the country takes the 11th place in the number of Russians entering the country. According to the Czech’s Statistics, Russians make the top three of the country’s inbound flow. Being on holiday at Czech’s resorts Russians spend about €150-200 a day which is three times as much as average rates.

 

There’s a merit of Russian tour operators as well: they invest in promoting the Czech Republic as a travel destination, participate in exhibitions Czech’s travel stands, and organize familiarization tours and workshops for their partners and journalists.

 

It’s not the first time the Czech Republic puts Russian travel market on trial. It seems they have forgotten how the travel business of both countries can consolidate to assert their rights. We’ll remind you’re the most famous case. In 2004 the number of documents for submission was limited to 400 per day with the necessity of 1500-2000. The tour operators of both countries carried tremendous losses. Then Russian Union for Tour Industry, ACK CR (Czech Association of Tour Operators) and ACCKA (Czech Association of Travel Bureau) applied with an open letter to the president of the country. A special press conference was organized in Prague. All in all it was attended by 80 people: nine tour operators from Moscow and St. Petersburg, more than 25 Czech’s travel agencies and the Heads of hotels is Prague, Karlovy Vary and Plzen. All the restrictions of the Czech’s Embassy were lifted in 10 days.

 

RUTI has already forwarded letters to the Czech’s Prime Minister Peter Nechas strongly requesting to pay attention to the Russian tour operators’ mass accreditation denial, help to clear the grounds and resolve the problem.

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