Authorities are killing about the interest in Belarus of tourists from the Middle East. See how many came last year
Last year, when there was a migration crisis on the border of Belarus and a strange application, the number of flights to Minsk from the Middle East increased sharply. The Belarusian authorities are the authorities that the citizens of the country arrive legally in regards to tourism. But last year’s inbound tourism statistics did not show a surge in tourists from the Middle East.
We have studied the data compilation Belstat “Belarus in numbers” to see how many tourists came to the country last year. It is noteworthy that Belarusian statistics did not record a significant part of the surge in arriving tourists from the countries of the Middle East, although the number of flights from these countries increased last year, and the Belarusian authorities declared and showed great interest in foreigners.
We have not started meeting on inbound tourism since 2020, when tourism dipped sharply due to restrictions due to the pandemic. To see the observations over the “normal” period, we will compare the number of past tourists with 2019.
The largest increase in the number of travelers from Jordan – if before the pandemic only 40 people came to Belarus in a year, then last year it was 450. There are more tourists from Egypt: 436 vs 257 in 2019. The number of citizens more than doubled Iranbut their total number is freely placed in two or three copies.
At the same time from UAE 193 tourists came last year, and two years before that – more than 1.2 years.
After increasing the balance from Iraq only a weekly flight flew from Baghdad to Minsk. True, after the detention by Iraq, air communication with Belarus is suspended three times. At the same time, tourists from Iraq were not included in the statistical collection at all. As for and stories. Previously reportedthat in total last year at least 2.7 congregations returned from Belarus to Iraq.
When the second Iraqi permissibility began flying in Belarus last May, MP Andrey Savinykh underlinethat Belarus is becoming a very important destination for tourists from this country. “Ethen people who are wealthy, who come to really get acquainted with our culture, our civilization,” he said.
the number of tourists from the countries of the Middle East covered in the general statistics, who arrived in Belarus last year, slightly exceeded 2.2 people. Two years ago, more tourists arrived in total in the compilation of countries. The change came with travel from the UAE and Turkey.
This is an unexpected phenomenon in connection with the government of the Republic of Belarus about the growing interest in our country. For comparison, the approximate number of foreigners on November 8 last year came to a neutral group on the Belarusian-Polish border, about the same number of people met in the Bruzgi logistics center on the twentieth of November last year. In total, on the border of Belarus and Poland in the same month, according to various searches, from 3.5 to 4 thousand people were found. And in December, according to Stanislav Zharin, Minister Coordinator of the Polish Intelligence Service, there were about 7,000 inhabitants from the countries of the Middle East on the territory of Belarus.
At the same time, the number of dead tourists from Poland and Lithuania increased last year. Of the first of them, 231 people arrived last year, and two years earlier – more than 61. From the second ratio, it was similar: 246 people last year against more than 76 thousand in 2019.
Recall that last year the number of assemblies detected in the EU countries with Belarusian territory increased sharply. A migration crisis has flared up on the Belarusian-Polish border. For a long time, foreign citizens lived in the Bruzgi logistics center near the border. The application blamed the Belarusian authorities for the crisis crisis.
The official Minsk stressed that foreigners from the Middle East legally arrive in our country on tourist visas, noting their increased interest in Belarus. “They cannot forbid migrants to fly to Belarus, we have a free country,” said State Secretary of the Security Council Alexander Volfovich, pointing out that “everyone arrives with tourist visas.” Alexander Lukashenko also spoke about the fact that these citizens are in Belarus on tourist visas.