Turkey to allow tourists to enter without passports

The Turkish government has decided to create tax-free tourism zones, where tourists arriving in foreign ships can get into these areas without passports. This initiative will enable Turkey to raise the index of competitiveness of the tourism sector.

Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci has said that tax-free tourism zones will be established in the Aegean and Mediterranean coastal provinces if Çeşme, Bodrum, Didim, Marmaris and Western Antalya.

"The project envisions foreign boats and ships docking in order to bring tourists who can enter without passports by removing the border and customs burden on foreign tourists. The zones will have entertainment services and shopping malls that target tourists in the high-income group," RIA Novosti cited him as saying.

Senior Lecturer of the Department of Management and Business at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of RANHiGS, Yevgeny Itsakov, appreciated this measure as useful, but stressed that it will hardly save the situation, because it won't compensate for the fall of the ruble against the dollar and the euro.

"Russian tourists now consider travelling abroad more unattractive because all the prices have doubled. Only the Ukrainian hryvnia and the Kazakh tenge fell at a rate comparable to us," he said.

"If Turkey will make tax-free zones, it will help to cut prices by about 20%. But still it does not compensate for the difference which was formed by the fall of the ruble," the expert noted.

Itsakov pointed out that, in his opinion, the fixing of prices in the Russian currency would be more effective. The representative of the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship stressed that work on the retention of Russian tourists and the preservation of the tourist flow from Russia to Turkey is of fundamental importance.

Despite the measures taken today, it is still obvious that the Russians are losing interest in outbound tourism and Turkey, in particular, he added. "The amount of international air travel dropped by 40%. And domestic tourism has increased," Yevgeny Itsakov concluded.

"There is no doubt that any actions of the government of any country, aimed at reducing various barriers of entry, make any country attractive. Especially Turkey with regard to Russia," the President of the Association of Domestic Tourism of Russia, Vladimir Sharov, said.

The expert explained that tourists from Russia are particularly important for Turkey, as they spend a lot of money on all sorts of additional services.

"This season, of course, was a little ragged on the loading of Russian tourists, but nevertheless the coast of Turkey is still one of the most popular holiday resorts for Russians," he added.