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It’s impossible to close down Turkey

08:07, 19 августа 2011

The Federation Council is aware of criminal incidents in Turkey involving Russian tourists. Senators believe that injuries, fights and poisonings should not be part of the “all-inclusive” package, and in case the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot protect Russian citizens, they “should stop going to Turkey”. It’s impossible to simply “close down” the country – shot back the entire tour industry.

The Upper Chamber of the Russian Parliament decided to sum up all the incidents involving Russian tourists in Turkey, so that vacationers could clearly decide for themselves whether to go or not, said Alexander Torshin, the Federation Council deputy speaker. “I will send a request to Rostourism to summarize all the latest accidents in Turkey that concern Russian citizens, and to present a full report to the Federal Council by the end of the season” – he said. This report will go public, according to Mr. Torshin, and the tourists themselves will “vote with their wallets, where they want to spend their vacation”. “The all-inclusive system should not include traffic accidents, beatings and poisonings”, - he added. Deputy speaker made the announcement after reports of a fight between hotel staff and Russian tourists over loud music the latter turned on in the hall.

“The MFA should either do everything to help protect our tourists, or acknowledge that its consulships are not effective enough and, thus people should not visit Turkey at all”, - said Alexander Torshin.

Members of the travel industry have serious doubts in the Council’s statement about closing down Turkey. “It seems more like some kind of a PR-move. These kind of incidents happen all the time”, - explained deputy general manager of “Russian Express” Gennady Kosarev. As an example, he remembered Egypt: when the tourist flow from Russia reached 2 million people, news of similar incidents started to surface as well. “Today the tourist flow to Turkey is over 3 million people a year. Now think of a city with 3 million people – accidents happen on everyday basis”, - added Mr. Kosarev.

The same opinion is shared by Irina Tyurina, press-secretary of the Russian Union of Travel Industry. “With such a huge tourist flow the accident count is actually rather low – she points out. – It’s just that every incident is aggressively covered by the media and the overall situation starts to look grim”.

However, experts note that the Turkish side should not use the situation as an excuse for poor service, especially if you talk about transportation. Traffic accidents happen with increasing frequency, and that’s not the tourists’ fault. “But if we’re talking about personal quarrels, every incident should be investigated separately. I’m sure that if you go through Turkish police records, you’ll find lots of cases when our tourists crossed some boundaries because they felt like kings of the world with their $500 in the pocket”, - said Gennady Kosarev.

Moscow has tried to limit the tourist flow to Turkey many times in the past. For instance, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) has sent a claim to the State Duma for approval in the end of June. The document proposed that all tourist activity from Russia to Turkey should stop. But the paper never got approved simply because the Duma went into summer recess. It’s still possible the issue will be addressed, when everyone’s back to work in September.

Experts are sure that the authorities will not “close down” Turkey. “Theoretically it’s possible to stop Russian tour operators from selling tours to Turkey, as the government did earlier this year with Egypt and Tunisia. But the tourist flow is way too large for such measures. The border is open, there are lots of flights: people will simply book flights and hotels themselves,” – explains Irina Tyurina. According to her, even if such restrictions will be introduced, it will affect the Russian tour industry more than the Turkish economy. People will still visit the country, even if they have to find other means of getting there.

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