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Will Russian tour operators stop selling tours to Poland?

08:07, 25 ноября 2011

Russian tour operators working on the Polish destination are concerned: the soonest date that can be offered by the online appointment system of the Consular Division of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Moscow is… January 10th. So, there`s no possibility to obtain a visa even for the tourists who have already bought their New Year and winter vacations tours to Poland.

Yesterday, the head of the consulate service Mikhail Grechilo had a meeting with the tour operators in the Embassy of the Republic of Poland. He received a letter from the Russian Union of Travel Industry with the detailed description of the situation, the tour operators working on the destination got involved in. All of them are taking risks to leave their clients without winter vacations, right before the high season starts. That may happen because of the daily application quota, set by the consulate. The amount of this quota hasn't been announced to the market. Russian companies, which have already bought out hotel rooms and paid for transfer, may bear huge losses as well as their Polish partners. Since Poland is the basic transit country from Russia to EU, this situation will primarily affect tourists who chose to travel to Europe by bus.

There`s a whole month of active sales ahead, remind the tour operators. Two charter trains, specially organized for the ski product – to Warsaw and Krakow, are not sold yet. It`s unprecedented, but, in fact, current situation brings operators to stop selling the high season tours to Poland, also says the letter.

 

It would be necessary to say, that tour operators have applied to Vice Minister of Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Poland Katarzyna Soberayska in the end of last summer with the similar problem. Ms. Soberayska promised to sort out the situation that time.

 

Through the dialog between Russian tour business and Polish governmental structures Poland becomes more and more popular destination for the Russians. According to Polish consulate in Moscow, 64 thousand visas have been issued since the beginning of this year. It`s 10 thousand more than during the same period in 2010. The Polish Tourist Organization (PTO) with the support of the country's Sports and Tourism Department and the Russian Union of Travel Industry has been holding Polish-Russian forums for 8 years now to familiarize tour operators with Poland's tourist facilities. Over 60 Russian and nearly 40 Polish tour operators took part in the latest forum, held in the beginning of November. “In this situation, the visa issues at Moscow Consulate seem to be a plain contradiction to the Government's tourism-friendly line”- reads the RUTI letter.

Yesterday's meeting at Polish Consulate was short and the dialog that the tour operators expected failed. The head of the consulate service Mikhail Grechilo made it clear, that he is not planning to extend the daily quota. “The consulate doesn't have enough staff to process more passports. We do understand all the problems the tour operators are talking about, but will proceed from our possibilities,”- says Mr.Grechilo. However, he also said, that he`s ready to consider quota enlargement for certain operators for their particular tourists. This way of solving the problem is odd for the tour operators. In order to pick a day in the appointment system you have to fill in the details of an actual tourist with dates of the trip, hotel name, insurance policy number etc.

As a result, tour operators were asked to tell the number of tourists, who will be needing a visa during winter season`s peak. So, actually they had to say how many more packages they will sell for the New Year and winter vacations. After analyzing the situation for “couple of days”, Mikhail Grechilo will inform every company individually about the amount of visas the consulate will be able to issue. This means, that in two days we will know if the sales of winter tours to Poland is to stop.

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