There are growing calls for banning Russian citizens from Europe. However, such a decision would have an extremely negative affect on tourism and hospitality industries still struggling to come out of the rut left by the pandemic.

Among other issues, the Prague meeting of EU foreign ministers on Wednesday will discuss whether to introduce new punitive measures against Russia. For weeks now, some countries in the bloc and key Brusselites have been pushing for barring Russian citizens from the EU’s territory, ie by not issuing them visas.

With direct flights between the European Union and Russia having been halted earlier, most tourists entered by land, taking advantage of the internal border-free Schengen zone to travel. In response, Finland recently cut the number of visas issued to Russians by a tenth and has now joined those countries that urge a full travel ban for Russian citizens.

As seen when other proposals for sanctions were on the table, a potential visa ban could once again ignite a sharp debate between member states as some of them strongly oppose such a move. Alongside Germany and France, Hungary also argues that Russian people should not be punished for the Russian president’s actions. High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell takes a similar stance saying that the EU cannot close the door on all Russians. Instead, the EU should examine more closely who is issued a visa and who is not, in other words, the number of visas issued should be significantly reduced, according to the EU’s foreign policy chief.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, also reacted to the proposal on the table of the EU foreign ministers, writing that

„Finally, everyone can see for themselves how Europe treats the citizens of Russia. Europeans are once again showing their true colours,”

Mr Medvedev added a common saying to his post, which in essence means: if life hands you lemons, then make lemonade.

Europe desperately needs Russian tourists, who are famous across the globe for spending lavishly during their summer holidays or autumn and winter trips abroad. They leave handsome amounts of money in the country they visit, boosting the survival and development of the tourism sector. Here’s just one figure: in 2021, Russian tourists spent more than twenty billion euros abroad. This sum, however, does not even come close to the figures before the pandemic: in 2019, Russian tourists spent some 36 billion euros during their trips, which made Russian nationals the world’s sixth largest spenders in terms of tourism.

A global study made a year before, in 2018, revealed that Russian tourists spent 1676 dollars on average during a holiday, (with a lot of Russians going abroad on holiday several times a year.) This amount was much higher than that of Europeans, who spent an average of 1174 dollars while on holiday.

The money spent by tourists is all the more needed because the hospitality sectors of many countries have still not been able to fully recuperate from the prolonged coronavirus pandemic, and tourism is a key pillar in the economies of quite a few member states.

For now, only the general magnitude of Europe’s losses in revenues can be estimated should it ban issuing visas to Russian citizens. Ahead of the summer season, some forecasts were prepared regarding the potential losses.

According to one made at the end of spring, European countries would lose some 3 million Russian tourists. It is noteworthy that at the time there was no word of a ban on issuing visas, only of the suspension of flights. Statistics suggest that Germany stands to lose the highest number of Russian tourists this year, some half a million, and consequently derived income even regardless of the visa ban introduction. Greece is expected to incur the second highest loss at the end of the year, as 300 thousand Russian tourists will not travel there, at least by plane.

Although Cyprus is further down on the list, the island country almost exclusively has its income from tourism and hospitality, it can find itself in an even larger crisis than it is in now, in case it loses a significant number of tourists. After the pandemic years, it sorely needs visitors, but besides the Brits, Cyprus’s seaside resorts had been frequented mostly by Russians until their travelling was made more difficult.

Before the summer period, fewer tourists were expected to travel to Italy (by 229 thousand), Hungary (203 thousand), France (179 thousand), the Netherlands (156 thousand), Bulgaria (149 thousand), Spain (123 thousand) and the Czech Republic (116 thousand).

The phenomenon, however, also has its winners: Serbia, Montenegro and Turkey have become more popular holiday destinations. The latter is a tourist favourite as it is, but this year even more Russian tourists may have chosen it over Greece, Cyprus or Italy.