“The safety of tourists is the most important thing for us,” the adviser for culture and tourism at Embassy of Turkey in Moscow Alper Özcan declared at the tourist exhibition “Otdykh” in Moscow. According to him, the authorities of Turkey are considering the possibilities of attracting more tourists due to the introduction to the tourism industry of new directives, and also development of old ones. “Our state now invests in golf tourism, medical and mountain-skiing tourism. And we will prepare special tourist packages for Russians,” Özcan declared.

Now in Turkey new hotels continue to be under construction as the tourist stream and the income from tourism in the country grow. More than fifty hotels are being constructed in Turkey, some of them belong to well-known hotels. In the second half of the year 2014 the tourist stream to Turkey grew by 6.6%, and the income from tourism increased to 13.8 billion dollars. The government expects that growth will continue.

From 1 January 2015 a new order of entry has to start working, according to which entry to the territory of Turkey entrance will be allowed only to those tourists whose international passport at the time of their trip is valid for no less than 4 months. However, as the vice-chairman of the Federation of Hotels of Turkey Suruli Chora-Batyr declared, hoteliers supported preserving the existing rules for Russians to enter and remain. The Federation of Hotels of Turkey even addressed the Turkish foreign minister with an offer to maintain the former visa regime, according to which the period of validity of passports isn’t limited for Russians.

However the tourist stream from Russia to Turkey could decrease because of mass bankruptcies of the Russian tour operators and travel agencies. Saint-Petersburg tour operator “Neva”, “Roza vetrov Mir”, tour operators “Uzhny krest”, “Expo-Tur”, “Ideal-Tur”, “Labyrint”, group of companies “IntAer”, tour operator “Nordik Star”, travel agency “Surgutkurort”, tour operator “Veter stranstviy”, tour agency “Phormula khoroshego otdykha”,”Etude”, “Milan tur” in Bryansk, travel agency “Atlas”, tour operators “Solveks-turne” and “Uzhny krest”, travel agency “More Solntsa” and “Versa” have declared their inability to fulfil their obligations. The Russian authorities continue to search for ways of solving this problem to secure citizens against bankruptcies of tour operators. At the request of the government a package of relevant amendments has to be prepared by 1 October.

Source: http://vestnikkavkaza.net