It seems that 90% of Russian citizens prefer only 4 destinations for tourism, including two Arab countries, despite the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The figures of the Association of Tour Operators in Russia showed that Russians most often travel in winter to Turkey, Thailand, the Emirates and Egypt, as these countries account for about 90% of the total winter trips of Russian tourists.
It also showed that during the past three winter months, four countries, the most popular among Russian tourists, accounted for 90% of the total number of trips out of 2.425 million trips to the 10 most popular tourist destinations, which are Turkey, Thailand, the Emirates and Egypt,” according to what was reported by the Tass agency.
The data showed that the demand for winter trips to Turkey doubled during the year, and increased by 75% to the Emirates, while it decreased slightly from the previous one to Egypt due to the insufficient volume of air transport compared to the volumes of last year.
It is noteworthy that the Russian war that was launched on Ukrainian territory on February 24, prompted many European countries to ask the European Union to stop granting Schengen visas to Russian citizens.
So the Union foreign ministers agreed, after weeks of pressure, to suspend the work of the agreement to facilitate the entry of Russians into their countries in late August (2022). At the time, the representative of the Union’s foreign policy, Joseph Borrell, explained that this decision would significantly reduce the number of new visas issued by member states, which would help restrict the entry of Russians.
