The information about the tougher visa regime for CIS tourists traveling to Egypt appeared on the forum on www.tourdom.ru on October 12th. In particular, according to the information Belarusian citizens will not be able to get the Egyptian visa on arrival to the airport, but will have to apply for visa in advance presenting plane tickets, insurance and accommodation voucher to the Embassy of Egypt.
Citizens of nine more CIS countries will follow the same scenario. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Consulate partly denied the information. According to Consulate agents, the facilitated visa regime suggesting visa issuing on arrival will remain the same for the citizens of Ukraine and Belarus, while citizents of such CIS countries as, for example, Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan, will get visas only after the interview in the Embassy. ‘For each country there are different requirements and visa issuing period’, said a representative of the Consulate. The more detailed information is available on +7 (495) 246-3080, 246-0234).
Representatives of Tourenergoservice, Coral Travel, ICS Travel Group and TEZ TOUR said in the interview to a BANKO correspondent that they did not receive any official information from the Egyptian Consulate.
However, it is clear that the above mentioned changes will not considerably affect the business of Russian companies. Head of the Visa Department of TEZ TOUR, Alexander Rusakov, emphasized that a share of CIS tourists sent by Russian tour operating companies to Egypt is 5%.