Moscow City Tourism Committee concluded its 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 witnessed 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 1,200 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 and MICE in 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.”

The city is launching the #DiscoverMoscow e-learning platformme 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.