Tunisia-bound charter flights to take off from 10 Russian cities this year

The Prime Minister of Tunisia Mr. Khuas Mehdi during his recent visit to Moscow met Russian tour operators to discuss mutual plans for the upcoming summer season. He also assured journalists that his country is now totally safe for tourists.

“Over 600 thousand foreign tourists visited Tunisia after the January revolution and not a single accident happened to them. We wouldn’t take such a responsibility on ourselves, if there were even a slight threat to our guests. I can assure you, that nothing poses danger to foreign tourists”. – said the Prime Minister.

As for now, Russian MFA doesn’t allow travelling to all regions of Tunisia. The only resorts open are Monastir, Sous and Hammamet. The Head of Tunisian rep office in Moscow Mr. Abderrazak Azzouzi revealed that Tunisian authorities tried to achieve agreement with Russian officials on opening all resorts and Djerba in particular, as it had been already included into the tour operators’ summer programs. He also reminded about several press-trips organized by the Tourism Ministry of Tunisia where journalists could see with their own eyes that the country is safe and very peaceful” – said Mr. Azzouzi.

According to Mr. Mehdi the recent NATO’s air operation in nearby Libya did not affect Tunisian tourist infrastructure considering that it gave shelter to over 320 thousands refugees from Libya and many other countries. “Some of them have already gone back home, but 15-20 thousand still remain in special camps. Of course the aftershocks of the conflict can still be felt near the border, but anyway it is quite far from the resorts, a several hour drive. If we had a tiniest doubt about tourists’ safety, we would have forbidden them from entering the country ourselves.” – claims the Minister.  

For the first three months the country has lost about 40% of the tourist inflow. For instance from January to March 2010 as many as 3 thousand Russians visited Tunisia, for the same period this year this figure stands at just 1 thousand. Mr. Azzouzi also reminded that the ban for flights was lifted only on April 21^st, however some tourists had been reaching Tunisia by Alitalia or Air France connecting flights. This summer season Transaero and Nouvel Air will be operating two flights a week each. Their first flights had quite low capacity rate, but now it finally got higher. Three flights a week will be taking off from Saint Petersburg. On May 20^th Pegas Turistik for the first time launched charter programs from ten Russian cities – Kazan’, Yekaterinburg, Ufa, Krasnoyarsk, Samara and others.

Last year Tunisia welcomed 188 thousand Russian tourists, which is 48% more compared to 2009. According to Mr. Azzouzi, Pegas Turistik intends to increase this number in 2011.

During his visit to Moscow Tunisian Minister of Tourism had a meeting with the Chairman of Moscow Tourism Committee and the President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry Mr. Sergey Shpilko. The Vice President of RUTI Yuri Barzykin and the Press Secretary of RUTI Irina Tiurina also attended the meeting. The agenda included Tunisia opportunities for promotion on the Russian market and for establishing mutual tourist exchange.