The Spanish Consulate in Moscow will finally be able to engage 16 additional members of staff during the next few months to speed up visa applications, thanks to a €150,000 budget item recently approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hopefully, this will resolve a bureaucratic problem that has threatened to check the growth in the number of Russian travellers visiting Spain this year.
At the Hosteltur Forum held on 5 May, Joan Gaspart, president of the CEOE Tourism Commission, warned that Spain risked losing around 200,000 Russian tourists in 2011, due to the lack of Spanish consulate staff to speed up tourist visa applications.
The problem is not new, since a growth in demand, which was already detected at the MITT show held in Moscow in March, indicated tha Spain would be incapable of handling such a large volume of tourist visa applications.
A total of 605,000 Russian tourists travelled to Spain en 2010, and this year there is a strong possibility of reaching the million mark.
In fact, after the MITT show, Francesc Xavier Mena, the head of the tourism department of the Catalonian regional government, sent an official letter to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Industry urging them to provide the Spanish Consulate in Moscow with additional funds – Mena's interest is due to the fact that 7 out of 10 Russian tourists travelling to Spain choose Catalonian destinations.
The pressure brought to bear by tourism associations, as well as different administrations, including the General Secretariat of Tourism run by Joan Mesquida, has had a positive effect and additional funds totalling €150,000 have finally been approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affaris. "For us, this is excellent news, since it will allow us to continue growing in the Russian feeder market," said Josep Maria Perramon, head of the Catalonian Tourism Board's office in Moscow since 1993.
Pending agreement between the UE and Russia
The problem of tourist visa applications in Russia will end when the European Union and Russia decide to sign an international agreement allowing tourists to travel between both regions withour a visa.
Negotiations between the EU and Moscow, which have already got underway, could last two years. Spain is one of the countries with the greatest interest in reaching an agreement, but other EU members such as the United Kingdom are not so keen on the idea.
