Although Russian tourists have already partially adapted to travel to a number of countries without Visa and Mastercard payment systems, mainly choosing all inclusive and paying in cash on the spot, they were assured that, at least in Turkey, they would have no problems paying for goods and services with the Mir card. The corresponding statement by Turkish Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati was quoted by the Turkish media.
“Russia has a Mir payment system. Mir cards are very well used, the share of businesses accepting them in Turkey is about 15%. There will be no problems,” he said.
Recall that in Turkey you can withdraw cash and pay for purchases with a Mir card in three large banks: Turkiye Is Bankasi, Ziraat Bankasi, VakifBank. Of these, two are public. Now, active preparations are underway to ensure that tourists coming to Turkey use the cards of the domestic Mir system as a payment system. Already, Russians can pay for plane tickets in rubles on the website of the Turkish airline Turkish Airlines.
According to the official, hotel occupancy is expected to be full in May, there will be no vacant places, and in the whole country, the occupancy rate next month will be about 68% (details here). Moreover, the Turkish authorities have favorable expectations in the field of tourism: they plan that 45 million guests will visit the country this year, and tourism revenue will amount to $35 billion.
Recall that back in October of pre-Covid 2019, Russia and Turkey signed an agreement on settlements and payments in national currencies, including the expansion of opportunities for Russian Mir cards on the territory of the republic. In March of this year, against the backdrop of Western sanctions, the international payment systems Visa and Mastercard refused to support the operation of Russian cards abroad. On the territory of our country, these cards continue to work as usual, however, when traveling abroad, travelers are advised to take cash and the Mir card with them for those countries where it is accepted. Now there are only ten of them – Turkey, Vietnam, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Earlier, Turprom wrote about tour price statistics. Details in the article “It turned out that prices for Russian tourists are growing only for Turkey.”
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