Weighing In on the Loss of the Asian and Russian Travel Market

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Italy has the largest number of sites included in the list of World Heritage sites and most of these are in cities of art. “It is the wealth of our country around which a supply chain that lives thanks to these tourist attractions is built,” observed the President of FIAVET (Federazione Italiana Associazioni Imprese Viaggi e Turismo, the Italian federation of associations of travel and tourism companies), Ivana Jelinic. FIAVET companies also fall into this supply chain, which are suffering the damage of the loss of two essential markets for cities of art: the Asian and the Russian.

“The non-acceptance of the Russian and Chinese vaccines for the green pass is creating enormous damage: infrastructures, services are suffering, and it adds damage to those who are already in a serious situation,” declared Jelinic. Suffice it to say that in cities like Rome, Chinese tourism had become the third market for arrivals in 2019 that the European tourism year started from Venice in 2018, redesigning the silk road.

Some markets are at a net loss, but the Russian and Chinese markets no longer exist. These are tourist flows that weigh heavily in the balance of payments for the numerous services associated with travel (personal shopper, tickets for events, museums, personalized visits).

“Cities like Rome, Florence, Venice live thanks and above all to a foreign tourism that has been absent for too long, and there are travel agencies and tour operators who have a product exclusively focused on these markets, so it is complicated, if not impossible, to diversify,” says the FIAVET President.

“The risk of selling off our tourist assets to foreign multinationals is just around the corner. The bans cannot fail to force us to reflect on the consequences of these choices,” Jelinic added.

The FIAVET President points out that even the UN is expressing itself in this sense.

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) welcomed the request from the World Health Organization (WHO) to lift or relax travel restrictions. “It is now clear that travel restrictions are not effective in suppressing the international spread of the virus as the WHO has declared in recent days,” Jelinic said, “It is the same WHO that in the last meeting in Geneva noted that the health limitations can cause economic and social damage.”

International tourist arrivals worldwide plummeted 73% in 2020, dropping to levels not seen in 30 years. And while tourism experienced a modest improvement in the third quarter of 2021, international arrivals between January and September 2021 were still 20% below 2020 levels and 76% below 2019 levels according to UNWTO data.

“If we do not open up to all foreigners and in particular to the Russian and Asian market, other competing countries will,” concluded Jelinic. “And in addition to losing points in the world tourism ranking, we will lose the opportunity for a sustainable recovery integrated with that of the rest of the world.”

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About the author

Avatar of Mario Masciullo - eTN Italy

Mario Masciullo - eTN Italy

Mario is a veteran in the travel industry.
His experience extends worldwide since 1960 when at the age of 21 he started exploring Japan, Hong Kong, and Thailand.
Mario has seen the World Tourism develop up to date and witnessed the
destruction of the root/testimony of the past of a good number of countries in favor of modernity/progress.
During the last 20 years Mario's travel experience has concentrated in South East Asia and of late included the Indian Sub Continent.

Part of Mario's work experience includes multi activities in the Civil Aviation
field concluded after organizing the kik off of for Malaysia Singapore Airlines in Italy as an Institutor and continued for 16 years in the role of Sales /Marketing Manager Italy for Singapore Airlines after the split of the two governments in October 1972.

Mario's official Journalist license is by the "National Order of Journalists Rome, Italy in 1977.

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