Russia has revealed plans to eliminate the requirement for a visa for Indian tourists in Spring 2025 in order to increase tourism industry and bilateral ties with India. With the intention of promoting intra-state ties and with an orientation of attracting as many visitors as possible, the government has been discussing the initiative for the past few months and now decided to put it into practice. The declaration will, along with other elements, be the highlight of the Russian Federation’s wide-range strategy for boosting tourism and intercultural exchange with India.

The gathered tourists will be initially the target of the visa-free program which is designed to provide travelers with the possibility to enter the country without an individual visa. According to the agreement between the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the Russian government, a particular number of people per group will be allowed in. The visa-free groups will generally consist of participants similar to the groups Russia has with other countries. For instance, a visa-free arrangement for Chinese tourists requires a group of 10-20 people.

Evgeny Kozlov, Chairman of the Moscow City Tourism Committee, expressed his view that the project could make a major difference. He claimed that India is in second place, only behind China in the list of distant foreign countries as far as the number of tourists to Russia is concerned. Kozlov underlined that Indian players are big spenders, saying that every tourist costs approximately $2,000, which is a decent contribution to Russian tourism.

This decision is a direct consequence of the success of the Unified E-Visa (UEV) system. Russia initiated the UEV system in August 2023, and it has been quite successful as far as bringing Indian nationals for personal, professional, or recreational purposes is concerned. They are usually provided with a visa in no more than four days. The UEV system has been an important step in the realization of stronger Russia-India bonds, thus the introduction of the visa-free arrangement is a natural continuation of this process.

Ever since the e-visa system was introduced, Moscow has seen a big rise in the number of Indian visitors. In the first half of 2024, the number of Indian tourists who visited Moscow increased by 1.5 times as compared to the same period of 2023 and reached 28,500 travelers. This upward trend is likely to hold up and become even more rapid once the visa-free travel policy goes into operation in 2025.

The Russian tourism authorities are not only concentrating on leisure travel but are also quite aggressively marketing Moscow as a venue for business, wedding, family, and film tourism. To add more Indian visitors, the Moscow City Tourism Committee is contacting Indian production companies in order to stimulate film shootings in the city. Although the details of incentives for filmmakers are not yet clear, this initiative is a strong indication of the desire of Russia to demonstrate Moscow’s appeal to a broad Indian audience.

The visa-free travel program will have a considerable influence on the tourism numbers. In 2023, over 60,000 Indian travelers came to Moscow, which was a 26% rise over the previous year. With the removal of visa requirements, those figures are expected to go up substantially, thus Russia will be on its way to the goal of 6 million foreign tourists in Moscow in the near future.

Spring 2025 is the anticipated date when Russia plans to meet the initial groups of visa-free Indian tourists in readiness, and both nations are eagerly looking forward to this initiative’s positive outcomes. The project is not only expected to encourage tourism but also to promote greater cultural understanding and economic interaction with Russia and India. The agreement will become finalized in the next few months, and both travelers and the tourism industry stakeholders are very excited to see the possibilities of this agreement.