The Greek Foreign Ministry denied the Russians a massive breakdown of tours due to non-issuance of visas – Interfax

Moscow. 25th of April. INTERFAX.RU – In Russia, there was not a single case of canceled flights, or individual tours of tourists due to delays in the issuance of visas to Greece, said in a statement the Foreign Ministry of Greece, on Monday

Thus Office comment on the information. that the Greek consulate in Moscow has accumulated thousands of passports of Russian tourists to plan a trip during the May holidays.

According to the Russian Union of travel Industry, due to restrictions recording to file documents for visa, entered the consulate last week, many tourists do not have time to apply for a visa in advance. On Friday, the restriction was lifted, and the visa centers have accumulated a huge queue. Rest of thousands of tourists turned out to be in jeopardy

“Photos from the large number of stakeholders outside the visa center -. It is the only case when one of the two visa centers, works with the Consulate General in Moscow, took customers without an appointment, . contrary to usual practice, the same day were instructed that both the visa centers operate by appointment only, “- said in the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs report

Office reports that in implementing a plan to strengthen the consular for several months. representative offices in Russia and other countries in connection with the introduction of biometric Schengen visas. In particular, in Moscow Consulate General strengthened by eight members of the Foreign Ministry, in addition to existing employees

“15 ministry employees come in early May and another 15 -.. Until the end of May will also recruited 55 seasonal workers from the local population. since mid-April, increased the number of jobs for the issuance of visas from 32 to 47, the installation of 30 additional workstations will complete before the end of June “, – stated in the

According to the Greek Foreign Ministry, its objective is to. consulate issued a visa within a period of ten days.

“in no case do not exceed that limit, while efforts are being made to the visa issued as soon as possible. the Consulate General in Moscow appealed to travel agencies with a request to provide a contemporary view . request on behalf of the tourists at the same time, according to the Consulate General was not a single flight cancellation or traveling individual tourists due to the delay in the issuance of visas “, -. according to the agency

Greek visa center last Friday in Moscow on Nikitsky Boulevard, which caters to clients of travel agencies, survived the invasion: a huge queue of people wishing to hand over documents for visas and biometric data spread out along several buildings. People were a total of about five hours. Hype preceded limit recording to file documents, which from April 13-14 has introduced visa center. This was done by the Consulate requirement that his staff did not have time to handle incoming requests

In connection with the situation Visa Centre was willing to work around the clock and on Friday and over the weekend 23 and 24 April to accept the documents at all. comers. Tour operators, in turn, expressed concern that problems will arise in the consulate since it may not have time this week to treat a number of documents.

The Greek authorities have repeatedly stated that they expect the growth of Russian tourist traffic to the level of 2013, which is almost 1.4 million trips. According to the data of the PCT, tour operators are still two or three weeks ago marked increase in demand for Greece compared with the same period last year by 40%. But as soon as there is information to limit the records in the delivery of documents, booking plummeted.