The FINANCIAL — Following the news that Turkish and Russian nationals will be able to travel visa-free to each other’s countries starting from mid-April, the expectations of an increased number of tourists from Russia are high in Turkey, according to Today's Zaman.
Speaking to Today’s Zaman on March 20, Touristic Hotels and Investors Association (TUROB) President Timur Bayındır and Turkish Association of Travel Agents (TÜRSAB) President Başaran Ulusoy said they expect 3.5 million Russian tourists to spend their vacation in Turkey in 2011, up from last year’s more than 3.1 million, because beginning April 17, Russians will no longer need a visa to enter Turkey. The two nations agreed to remove visa requirements for each other’s citizens during Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s visit to Turkey last year. Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Medvedev agreed to launch the new Turkey-Russia visa regime on April 17. “There will no longer be questions [in Russians’ minds] like ‘How am I going to collect all those documents [required for a visa application]?” Bayındır said, adding that Russians will also be able to keep the application fees in their pockets and be saved from the extra expenditures of a vacation in Turkey. For Ulusoy, these facilitations will even result in over 3.5 million Russian tourists visiting Turkey this year. “This will not be easy, but we will accomplish that,” he said.
Both experts also think that the visa-free travel will help increase the number of Turks to visit Russia throughout 2011. Turkey’s tourism revenue is far greater than its citizens’ expenditures abroad. According to the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), a little more than 33 million inbound travelers spent some $20.8 billion in Turkey, whereas the more than 6.5 million Turks who travelled abroad spent almost $5 billion overseas in 2010.
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