MOSCOW, March 2./TASS/. No new countries that Russian tourists could visit are likely to open in spring, Director of the Association of Russian Tour Operators Maya Lomidze told RBC TV channel on Tuesday.
"I don’t think new countries will be added in spring. We currently have countries that receive Russian nationals and that we have direct flights with, but these countries are not very convenient for full-fledged holidays," Lomidze said, adding that the association was not expecting new tourist destinations to open in spring.
The director expressed hope, however, that the coronavirus situation would stabilize in Cyprus by April and it would open for Russian tourists. "We hope that Cyprus will get back to the decision to accept Russian tourists without a quarantine. Quarantine is the most serious restriction on the way to tourist flows. Apart from Cyprus, I don’t see any countries that could open as tourist destinations in the foreseeable future," she stressed.
Meanwhile, she did not rule out that the situation in Europe might change by the summertime. "One of the lessons we learned in 2020 is that the situation may reverse rapidly," she said. "I would not be counting the summer out for now," Lomidze said.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.