Medidas para simplificar el régimen de visas para extranjeros

The General Director of JV Intourist / Thomas Cook Leonid Marmer proposed to introduce a visa-free regime for citizens of a number of countries and to simplify the visa getting procedure for foreign tourists that will favorably affect the incoming tourist flow to Russia and will contribute to its increase.

According to Leonid Marmer, it is necessary to allow a visa-free stay for up to 72 hours not only to passengers of cruise ships arriving in St. Petersburg, but also to guests of other Russian ports. He also drew attention to visa-free travel opportunities for transit passengers and tourists in the border areas.

“At the moment, foreigners arriving at one airport need to get a Russian visa in order to fly from another airport and this terribly restricts the admission of foreigners,” Marmer said.

The creation of a visa-free group trips system and the extension of the experiment with the introduction of electronic visas beyond the Primorsky Krai can be called among the main proposals to simplify the visa regime.

It should be noted that the introduction of certain measures aimed to simplify and abolish the visa regime will increase the inbound tourist flow to Russia by 15%.

The extension of the list of countries with a simplified visa regime with Russia will also help to increase the number of tourists.