Safety of foreign tourists in Moscow has improved drastically over the last
couple of years. According to Alexander Korolev, Head of the Second Department
of Public Peace of Moscow
Police, the number of crimes committed against foreign citizens is constantly
dropping. In 2012 there were 427 registered accidents involving foreigners,
whereas in 2011 there were 600 of them. If we’re talking about tourists from UK, Germany
and USA,
there were 39 offences in 2009, 29
in 2010, 18
in 2011, and only six this year.
Marina Levchenko, General Manager of Tari Tour,
says that the city is now much safer than some years ago. “There are no hotel
robberies, there’s no extortion or blackmailing. Usually there are only common
everyday incidents. In that light Moscow
is not just safe, it’s safer than many other cities around the world. There’s
now much more friendliness in the air, then there used to be. And the growing
number of foreign tourists is a good sign that the safety level is getting
higher”, - she explained.
This and other questions were discussed during
the Moscow Conference on Tourism Safety, organized by the Committee for Tourism
and the Hotel Industry. According to Sergey Shpilko, the Chairman, this is
basically the first time, when authorities, travel market players and Moscow tourism safety
specialists sit at one table. Also, this is a first step towards the
preparation for the big events that await Moscow
in the nearest future. In 2013 the city will be receiving the World track and
field championship, in 2014 there will be a lot of foreigners, transiting to Sochi for the Olympics, and in 2018 Moscow is hosting the FIFA World Cup.
“We’ve organized this meeting to get a better
look at the current situation and work out some measures towards making the
capital a safer place for tourists. Right now incidents involving foreign
tourists are rather rare. But Moscow
still has some old stereotypes attached to it, and many see it as an unsafe
city. So we will have to do a lot of work in terms of security as well as in
terms of publicity”, said Sergey Shpilko.
He believes that Moscow
can use some techniques that were tested in Saint Petersburg, when police and volunteers
cooperate in looking after most popular tourist spots. It might not be much,
but these measures helped to take the situation under control in Northern Palmira.
The main objective of the meeting is to go over
all the available security measures that will help protect the peace of foreign
and domestic tourists in Moscow.
The complex approach can be confirmed by the participants themselves. The
conference was attended by representatives from the Moscow Duma, Rostourism,
Moscow Department of Regional Security, Moscow Department of Civil Defense,
Head Department of MIA, STSI, Moscow Branch of Emergency Ministry, Moscow
Migration Service, Transport Police, Drug Control authorities, Security
personnel from Russian Railways and Vnukovo
Airport, and many others.
Heads of travel companies, hotels and colleges also took part in the event.
