Moscow City Tourism Committee, in collaboration with AVIAREPS India, concluded its very first digital roadshow in India. The four-day panned virtual event was specially curated to present the “City of Moscow” as an attractive travel destination to the vibrant Indian outbound travel fraternity spread across 15 major cities PAN India.
The virtual event concluded on a positive note with the participation of 25 inbound tour operators and hotels from Moscow. The presentation made by Moscow City Tourism Committee not just touched upon the tourism landscape in Moscow post pandemic era but also gave deep insights by covering all aspects of the city including the topic on e-visas. More than 1200 B2B meetings were successfully conducted for the 600 participants representing the Indian outbound tour operators and agents, OTAs, MICE companies and media partners.
Spotlighting the simplified E-Visa procedures for a visit to Moscow, Ksenya Boykova, Head of International Affairs & MICE, Moscow Project Office for Tourism and Hospitality Development said, “From January 2021 tourists from 52 countries including India will be able to apply for e-visas, opening Russia to millions of tourists from across the globe. It will be very easy to visit Moscow or any other city in Russia now as all applications will be processed online without the need to visit a consulate in person or fill out any paperwork. We hope that the introduction of e-visa will lead to the increase in the tourist flow from India to Moscow.”
Ellona Pereira, Head, AVIAREPS India, said, “This year has been extremely challenging for all of us in the travel industry and at AVIAREPS, we are working each day to come up with creative solutions for our business requirements. We are extremely proud to have entered the virtual space through this digital roadshow, which was aimed to help the travel fraternity staying in-sync with new tourism offerings of the post-pandemic Moscow. Paving the way forward in the face of the new normal, we are sure that this virtual format will help in strengthening the dialogue between the tourism industry in Moscow and India.”
Moscow is launching the #DiscoverMoscow e-learning platform for foreign travel agents to help them in staying abreast with the new tourism products of Moscow through various differently themed online courses. The platform is free, however registration is required. This program can be useful for agents to learn more about Moscow, its history, places of interest, and the latest trends. Also, by answering a few quiz questions, one can get a Moscow Tourist Product Expert Certificate.
In fact earlier this year, during the summer period Moscow had also launched a new innovative digital service – RUSSPASS. The objective is to help tourists to build interesting travel routes across Moscow or Russia’s regions and to search for city services and attractions. Hence, before visiting Moscow, travellers will be able to select a ready-made tourist package for three, five, or seven days with a free admission to all regional museums of Moscow. Otherwise, they can construct their travel routes themselves. With RUSSPASS, it takes only a few mouse-clicks to organize one’s tour end-to-end. It is now available in English and Russian, but more languages are to come in 2021.
