Egypt became the leader of the winter season 2021-2022 among organized tourists. At the same time, Russian resorts were in the second place, displacing Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Russian tourists who are going on vacation to the emirate of Dubai, from February 3, will have to receive a negative PCR test no earlier than 48 hours before departure. That is, the validity of the PCR test is reduced by a day.

In mid-January, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi excluded Russia from the "green" list of countries. For unvaccinated tourists.

The tour operator Anex Tour, together with its strategic partner – Azur air, is launching its own flight program in Abu Dhabi, expanding its offer for tours in the UAE.

The Ajman Department of Tourism Development concluded the first edition of the “Al Murabbaa Arts Festival”, under the slogan of “Inspired by Yesterday to Imagine Tomorrow”, which reflected the historical aspects of civilization in the Emirates and its close connection with the past and its ability to preserve the cultural heritage and build bridges with  the new generations. More than 20,000 visitors attended this event, during which 64 performances and workshops were held by more than 170 artists.

From November 9, the Operational Headquarters removes all restrictions on regular and charter flights to Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh. Also, restrictions on air traffic with Austria, Switzerland, Finland and the United Arab Emirates were lifted. New destinations opened, including Thailand and Tunisia.

For the nine months of 2021, Russians made 5,24 million trips to open and popular countries for the purpose of tourism. The volume of outbound tourist traffic is far behind the indicators of 2019.

Flight programs to popular resorts of the United Arab Emirates and their prices for the winter season were announced by the tour operator Anex Tour. According to the tour operator, the winter flight program based on Azur air flights will be significantly expanded.

The first September weeks in Moscow are running under the moto of Dubai and Expo 2020. B2B and B2C events are presenting the opening of the show October the 1st. As expected Expo 2020 should be an economical driver for Dubai and the whole country after challenging pandemic time.  

In the first half of 2021, the Russian tourist flow to Dubai was 15% more than in the same period last year.

Tours for the autumn season, 2021, according to the observations of the tourist experts, are quite in demand. In general, the TOP-10 most popular foreign destinations for the autumn season this year, as per the data of tour operators, includes Turkey, UAE, Maldives, Greece, Cuba, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Abkhazia and Croatia.

Ajman Tourism Development Department (UAE) shared plans how to attract more Russian tourists to the region. At the moment, the office is conducting meetings with various Russian and Ukrainian tour operators, at which they discuss plans for joint marketing campaigns. The focus is on working with travel agencies: conducting business breakfasts, webinars, seminars, as well as roadshows in the regions of Russia. The main goal is to educate travel agents about hotels and infrastructure of Ajman, about its white sandy beaches, cultural points and events, so they could offer tours to Ajman to their clients.

Despite the opening of the emirate of Abu Dhabi to tourists, this destination now practically is not in demand, according to tour operators. The reason is, among other things, in the harsh conditions of entry into the Emirate.

The Ajman Tourism Development Department (UAE) has decided to open Representative Office in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in 2021. This decision was supported by His Highness SHeikh AbdulAziz Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, the Chairman of Ajman Tourism Development Department. The official PR and Marketing agency of the Representative Office is the Russian company BAGINET.

The low-cost airline Air Arabia has resumed direct flights on Sharjah - Moscow - Sharjah route from May 1, 2021.

Travel operator Space Travel has bought blocks of seats on flydubai flights to the UAE, thus reducing the price of the package. The start of the program was on April 18, 2021.

The tour operator Russian Express has arranged budget tour packages based on flights of the low-cost airline flydubai from Moscow, Samara, Kazan and Yekaterinburg.

Flights and tourist traffic from Russia amidst pandemic (weekly update)

Ural Airlines will open a direct flight from Yekaterinburg to Sharjah. The carrier announced this on its Telegram channel on Friday.

Russia will resume flights to Vietnam, India, Finland and Qatar on January 27, 2021, with several flights per week.

Russian Utair announced the launch of flights from Grozny to Dubai: from December 27, once a week.