Valiantsin Cechmeistar: Belarus is a country for travelers in a hurry

State plans of travel export on 2013 provide for the 32 per cent increase of this factor up to $250 million. At what cost can it be done? How Belarus can manage to attract tourists into the country?

The minister of sport and tourism Aliaksandr Shamko announced the plans to increase tourism when making a report before the government about the results of the work in 2012 as well as the plans to fulfill the tasks in 2013.

The chairman of the Republican union of tourist organizations Valiantsin Cechmeistar in the talk with the EuroBelarus Information Service noted that the interest of foreign tourists to this or that country is defined by two main factors: the infrastructure and the degree of openness of this country.

The Republican union of tourist organizations together with the Ministry of Sport lobbies the interests about certain reduction in visa costs. Valiantsin Cechmeistar stated that in order to attract tourists into the country it is worth to sacrifice the reciprocity principle predominating in the foreign-policy sphere.

The Championship of 2014 is not an indicator

In order to estimate the possible effect from reduction in price or from visa cancellation Valiantsin Cechmeistar suggests introducing the trial period of half a year during which it is possible to monitor the visits of foreign tourists to the country.

World hockey championship that will be held in Minsk in 2014 can become such a trial period. However, Valiantsin Cechmeistar believes that monitoring should be carried out in some other time, as during the championship a specific category of tourists will come to Minsk. And it is not necessary that our country will be interesting for visit in some other time.

Still, the hindrances for the entrance tourism should be viewed in complex, notes the interlocutor: “The problem won’t be solved only if the entrance visas will be cancelled. As even after visa cancellation the number of visits can increase for some time, then the people coming there will see that there is no infrastructure and thus, there is no sense to stay in Belarus for more than a couple of days”.

In this connection except from the question of country openness we need to think about the development of the infrastructure: “It is three- and even two-star hotels that our country lacks in the first place, - said Valiantsin Cechmeistar. – Those who travel are mainly people of the retired age and the youth, i.e. people who are not ready to pay lots of money for the hotel. And the middle-aged are business people. They prefer comfort and staying in hotels we already have”.

Belarus is a country for travelers in a hurry

The consequence of problems with the infrastructure is the impossibility to organize long tours across our country. “Belarus wasn’t a good place for marathon visits even in the Soviet time. People have always stayed there for 2-3 days at most”, - notes the head of the association of tourist organizations. Today this tendency is preserved: if we take Siličy and Lahojsk, they are still popular with the residents of Moscow because of their closeness which allows coming here on vacations for a couple of days without surmounting great distance.

The sanatorium-and-spa treatment is hardly the only form of tourism that presupposes long stay in Belarus. However, as Valiantsin Cechmeistar notes, even if the health resort in not far from Minsk coming guests can hardly see anything in the city: “Excursion routs in Minsk are poorly developed, also because the inflow of tourists is still low”.

Even in Niasviž which is very popular with tourists the problem of a place to stay is still pressing: “To stay over in “Niasviž” hotel for $90 without breakfast is not the luxury that a European can spend his money on”, - noted the interlocutor of “EuroBelarus”.

So here we are, with Belarus that is only interesting to tourists who are travelling in a hurry. However, Valiantsin Cechmeistar noted the importance of this direction. “For their first visit people often choose long tours in order to glance over different countries and cities. And the place the person liked once he would like to visit one more time only for a longer period”, - he said.

In order to activate the first visits to our country we need to work over the creation of common offers with our neighbors. The expert believes that the border area with Poland and Lithuania is an important direction. “If we organize the possibility for the tourists traveling across the Polish part of the Białowieża Forest to reach the Belarusan side of the it without extra bureaucratic procedures, it would attract at least some part of tourists there”, - Valiantsin Cechmeistar examplified his point of view.