No peering into the eye any more

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   At the beginning of October, Dubai airport abolished eye scanning for tourists upon arrival. This was told to BANKO correspondent by Hassan Al-Aridi, President of the UAE’s receiving company Alfa Tours. According to his own words, he had actively lobbied the abolition of this procedure with the government. Scanning had been used for a little more than a year and was first of all aimed against previously deported persons who wanted to re-enter the country. At the time of deportation, the retinal scan was entered into an electronic database, and during the check-up the computer identified violators in the flow of entrants by matching the sample against the records. However, this procedure had to be undergone by all tourists.
   “Scanning created jams in the airport and in general was contrary to operators’ objectives of increasing their volumes,” believes Hassan Al-Aridi. By the way, today the annual flow from Russia is about 150 thousand tourists, and, according to Natalia Vorobieva, General Director of Natalie Tours, the market can grow to 300-350 thousand a year. Furthermore, in addition to objective problems, scanning caused subjective discontent: a high percentage of tourists going to the Emirates are affluent customers (more than 60% of tourists book expensive hotels), who did not like being treated as potential “criminals”.
   Russian operators viewed this innovation as a positive development. Meanwhile, according to Andrei Zorin, UAE Department Manager of Russian Express, the abolition of scanning may also have negative consequences. “Until recently, when the names and surnames matched, the tourists’ identity was established by the retina. Now there is a possibility of refusals on entry,” the expert says.