TravTalk India Online Magazine
The number of tourists from Russia to India has grown by around 27 per cent, thereby showing good recovery of arrivals as compared to the past few years.
Manas Dwivedi
On the sidelines of the Russian Indian Summit 2018, the Russian Export Center in association with the Russian Information Center, organised a round-table conference on tourism. With more than 120 trade professionals from Russia and India attending the event, Rajan Sehgal, Member—Managing Committee, TAAI, and Sanjiv Pasricha, Executive Vice President, Event & Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) made the keynote address, along with Timur Vekilov, Chief Representative in India of Russian Export Center.
The round-table moderated by Paresh Navani, Partner, Russian Information Center (RIC), discussed the needs and special services required by Indians and ways to address the same. In this regard, Russian Information Center announced the pre-launch of Ural Airlines set to begin operations from March 24, 2019, connecting Mumbai to Yekaterinburg and Moscow, along with some tourism products to take advantage of the new airline service between the two countries. Further, RIC presented its ‘India Friendly’ programme to the Indian travel trade. On this, Navani said, “The India friendly programme trains Russian hotels on Indian culture and cuisine whilst ensuring that other specific needs are provided to Indians in Russia. After the programme, eligible hotels are certified as India Friendly. The programme is a joint venture between the Russian Information Cener and the tourism department of Russia with the training being imparted by St Petersburg University.”
The India Friendly programme trains Russian hotels on Indian culture and cuisine whilst ensuring that other specific needs are provided to Indians in Russia. The programme is a joint venture between the Russian Information Center and the tourism department of Russia
Navani further added, “The idea of this business mission was to deliberate over how to increase the tourism flow between India and Russia. It is a platform to exchange ideas and expectations. We have also partnered with all the associations from India and we hope to make possible convection in Russia.”
On the occasion, the Russian Export Centre also announced the establishment of India representative office in Mumbai. Anna Belyaeva, Managing Director—International Business Development, Russian Export Center said, “The business mission was organised in view of the visit of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin with a large delegation of Russian companies accompanying him, especially to promote their businesses and tourism — one of the areas of expansion for Russia. We believe that tourism is one of the most important services that we shall be promoting from Russia to India.”
Ivan Breganov, Regional Manager, IFS, Russian Visa Center confirmed that the number of tourist visas issued from January to September 2018 has already surpassed the total number of visas issued in 2017, pegging the year-on-year growth around 27 per cent.
New Services
- The Russian Information Center announced the pre-launch of Ural Airlines set to begin operations from March 24, 2019, connecting Mumbai to Yekaterinburg and Moscow
