From professional sports to Hollywood and food and beverage, a wide range of industries announced boycotts, bans and other forms of retaliation against Russia in response to the violent invasion of Ukraine.
Now, the travel industry is also starting to act.
Cruise lines, including prominent companies such as Carnival, tour operators and various industry organizations, have announced plans to cancel upcoming tours in Russia and also to restrict Russian entities from participating in their business.
These developments come on the heels of continued unrest in air travel, as the European Union, Canada and Moscow issued reciprocal airspace bans this week. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden also announced that the United States will close its skies to Russian aircraft.
Not surprisingly, Russia’s travel industry is responding in kind. On Tuesday, the Russian Federal Tourism Agency recommended that its citizens avoid visiting countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia and advised tour operators to suspend sales of tours to those countries.
Meanwhile, many prominent tourist landmarks and monuments were lit up in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag, adding to the momentum of massive protests across the world. On a smaller scale, at least one major travel company – the Kayak booking platform – has added Ukraine’s national colors to its digital logo.
It remains to be seen how these measures will affect Russia’s tourism sector, which brought in about $84 million in 2019. For now, some industry leaders say a show of united support across the travel industry is crucial.
“Most tourism companies, including ours, see our mission as global ambassadors of cultures,” Catherine Chaulet, president and CEO of Global DMC Partners, a network of independent destination management companies, said in an email. “In times of war, it is even more important to share the history of the places, the values and the stories of the people affected. More than ever, our role today is to share and protect what unites us, not what divides us.”
Here’s a summary of some notable developments so far.
canceled tours
The famous guide writer, Rick Steveswas one of the first and most important names in the industry to share news about his tour company, Rick Steves’ Europe, canceling all stopover trips in Russia.
Steves announced the decision on Feb. 24 in a blog post titled “Comrades No More,” writing, “Our mission at CSR is to help Americans better know and understand our neighbors through travel. But when we bring travelers to another country, we also bring their dollars – the dollars that would support Putin’s attack.”
Another prominent travel provider, G Adventures, based in Toronto, Canada, went further in its response. In addition to canceling tours with stops in Russia, the adventure travel agency will not accept bookings from Russian travel agencies or Russian citizens as customers “in the near future,” said G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip.
“The purpose of sanctions, the overall purpose is to unite, is to pressure internally within the country,” said Poon Tip. “So, as companies, we must [todos] do our part”.
In 2019, G Adventures made more than a dozen trips that included stops in Russia; all these offers have been removed from their website. The company announced the news in an email to employees and customers on Tuesday night. “I’ve always said that traveling can be the fastest way to peace, so it breaks my heart to know that it has come to this,” Poon Tip wrote in the email.
BusinessClass.com, a search engine based in Oslo, Norway that specializes in premium travel, also announced that it is blocking all bookings and content from Russia from its website, a move CEO Jason Eckoff is urging its industry colleagues. “I am now asking ALL travel companies in the world to join us in excluding everything related to Russia from their respective services until this terrible unprovoked invasion comes to an end,” Eckoff wrote in a LinkedIn post.
Other operators are making similar moves. Charles Neville, marketing director for US-based JayWay Travel, which provides tailored tours to various Eastern European destinations, told CNN he is no longer promoting or booking travel to Russia, Ukraine or Belarus.
Together, travel to these countries represents less than 5% of the company’s business, Neville said, and the company maintains close communication with customers who have already booked these destinations, with options to postpone or reorganize their trips.
Far more complex, however, is the complicated question of whether JayWay Travel will eventually promote travel to Russia again – an especially difficult task for organizations that have employees with first-hand experience and a family history of oppression by dangerous regimes.
“We have a colleague in Ukraine and suppliers [locais] to whom this is happening now, and to them, forgive my language, ‘Screw Russia, why would we send people there?’” Neville said. “I think it’s a discussion that a lot of travel companies will have to have. I mean, there are very few companies sending people to North Korea. Is this how Russia ends?”
rerouted cruises
Cruise operators were among the first travel companies to announce rerouting of itineraries with stops in Russia, including key players including Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Viking and Carnival Corporation, parent company of nine cruise lines.
Other operators that have announced similar changes include industry new Atlas Ocean Voyages, MSC and boutique brand Sea Cloud, Colleen McDaniel, editor-in-chief of Cruise Critic, a leading online resource in the cruise industry, said in an email.
Many itineraries include Saint Petersburg, known as the “cultural capital” of Russia, which, according to its tourist board, attracted around 10 million visitors in 2019.
Rerouting itineraries to avoid bad weather or destinations where conflicts have broken out, to keep passengers and crew safe, is not uncommon in the cruise industry.
However, Russia’s recent departures also reflect a decidedly humanitarian stance: Carnival Corporation, for example, concluded its announcement posted on Twitter on February 26 with the statement “We stand for peace.”
McDaniel said this is in line with the underlying values of many cruise passengers. “This reflects what we’ve seen on our boards and also on social media, with clients reporting that they will also speak through their dollars,” she said.
Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean International (RCI), which owns Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Silversea, on Tuesday released a statement announcing cancellations of its itineraries with stops in Russia, an RCI spokesperson confirmed by email.
Saga Cruises and Hurtigruten Expeditions have ships scheduled to call at Russian ports this summer and are continuing to monitor the situation, according to McDaniel.
#StandWithUkraine
At least one Eastern European tourism group featured on the popular hashtag #StandWithUkraine. ANTRIM, a non-profit organization representing the private sector in Moldova’s tourism industry (which shares its nearly 1,200km eastern border with Ukraine), announced plans on Instagram to make hotels, guesthouses and restaurants available for refugees from the country who flee the war.
“Dear Ukrainian neighbors, we are by your side in these difficult times. Sad events in your country have forced them to cross our borders. We hope our country’s borders and walls make you feel safe,” the agency wrote, directing refugees to its website or visitor information center in Chisinau. A subsequent post shared details on how to donate to a bank account created by the country’s Ministry of Finance to provide financial support.
Rental platform Airbnb also announced plans on Monday to offer free temporary housing to up to 500,000 Ukrainian refugees.
Meanwhile, Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias announced plans this week to open 50,000 tourism jobs for Ukrainian refugees or Greek expatriates.
Other expressions of solidarity with Ukraine can be seen in tourist spots around the world.
On Friday, as Russian forces entered Ukraine’s capital Kiev, many of the world’s most famous monuments were lit up in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag. Among them: the Empire State Building in New York, the London Eye, the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum in Rome.
In Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate was lit up in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag over the weekend. And on Sunday (27), more than 100,000 people marched through Germany’s famous landmark, during one of the biggest protests against the Russian invasion.
*This article has been translated. Read the original version here.
Source: CNN Brasil
