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Mexico expects half a million Russian tourists in 7 years time

08:07, 8 июля 2011

“Now, when you’re planning a trip to Mexico, the visa is not that serious of a concern”, said the Mexican ambassador to Russia Mr. Alfred Peres Bravo, addressing the journalists. The latter were summoned for the meeting of the ambassador and the Mexican Minister of Tourism Gloria Guevara Manso, who is visiting Russia for the first time. Mr. Bravo reminded everyone that Russian citizens can acquire a Mexican visa without even leaving their home – it’s a simple online procedure which takes only 5-10 minutes.

Such visa policy has already proven to be effective. Little more than a 1000 tourists from Russia visited Mexico in 2006, and during last year alone – 27000. In the first four months of 2011 a total of 14000 Russian tourists have come to the country. That is 64% more, compared to last year’s figures. Mexican authorities expect this year’s tourist flow from Russia to amount to roughly 50000. And by 2018 this number should rise to half a million.

According to Mrs. Guevara Manso, Russia is a very important strategic partner for her country. In order to strengthen the relationships between the two countries, the Mexican delegation has organized two important meetings – with The Minister of Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy Vitaly Mutko and with the head of RosTourism Alexander Rad’kov. Another important issue discussed at the meetings was the optimization of air transport service. “Transaero” has already confirmed that they will increase the number of flights to Mexico up to 8 a month in October. Also in October a joint charter program is going to be launched by “Aeroflot” and 10 Russian tour operators: “South Cross”, “TEZ Tour”, “Caribbean Club”, “Coral Travel”, ICS, “Lanta-tour Voyage”, ITC, “Natalie Tours”, “Pegas Touristic” and “Russian Express”. The plan is to fill 3 flights each month. If the services prove to be popular, the company is ready to add some more flights and turn some of them into scheduled flights. Note, that “Aeroflot” is planning the flights to arrive at Cancun and depart from Mexico City and vice versa. “Transaero” is also considering possible flights to Mexico’s capital.

Mexico’s Ministry of Tourism is placing emphasis on collaboration with Russian tour operators. Mrs. Guevara Manso points out that this work is based on partnership. If any operator decides to form a flight, say to Cancun, the ministry will take part in the promotion program to help the company fill up the planes. “We have shared our estimates about half a million tourists with some operators and they think this number is easily achievable” – says Gloria Guevara Manso.

As for the Mexican side’s readiness to attend to that many new tourists, the minister said that the government has a unique plan to train Russian-speaking staff and tour guides. State financing is already taking place in many areas of tourism. At the moment there are 200 Russian families living in Mexico, which work in the field of tourism, there are also natives who speak good Russian. Work is underway to train so-called tourist ambassadors, create student exchange programs. “In a year’s time we will be ready to serve up to 100 thousand tourists from your country” – summed up Gloria Guevara Manso.

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