A Visa for 2
The tourism firms of St. Petersburg that arrange Italian tours have jointly addressed the Moscow office of the National Tourism Agency of Italy. They call on the Agency to exert influence on the Consulate General of Italy in St. Petersburg, which curtails the number of visa applications starting from Monday. This action, the tourism firms say, may trim the tourist flow by 50 percent. The weekly sales of the companies will go down by ˆ400,000 to - ˆ500,000, the analysts estimate.
From August 21, the Consulate General of Italy will weekly accept from tourism firms no more than 560 passports for visa’s provision. Seventy four firms accredited with the Consulate have been granted the 200-passport quota, while the remaining 360 are to be shared by four big firms – Neva, Flamingo, InterTransAvia and Balt-Tour.
But at least 20 companies of St. Petersburg are selling Italian tours now, according to Art Travel.
Another restriction relates to checking in for submitting the documents. It could be done only once a week from Monday, though the time hasn't been unlimited so far.
The tourist flow to Italy from St. Petersburg may drop two fold, the tourism firms fear. As at least a thousand tourists go to Italy by charter flights from St. Petersburg each week and the minimal worth of the weekly tour averages ˆ800, so the sales of the firms will go down by roughly ˆ400,000 to ˆ500,000 as a result.
In Italian Consulate General, they say they haven’t cut down the quota, just taken some practical steps to improve efficiency of the visa provision.
But tourism firms have another explanation, blaming the quoting effort on the lack of personnel in the Consulate General. Off-the-record, it is said the Italians materially reduced the staff not long ago and the remaining employees are unable to cope with all documents submitted.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 18, 2006
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