YEREVAN, December 16. /ARKA/. Tour operators in Russia are expected to receive tens of thousands of new requests for Visa and MasterCard cards in post-Soviet countries, said Artur Muradyan, vice president of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR).

He identified Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Armenia as the main destinations for “card tourism,” Kommersant reports.

ATOR notes that the anticipated boom in “card tourism” next year – trips by Russian citizens abroad to obtain cards from international payment systems – is driven by the reduction in the number of Russian banks whose UnionPay cards are accepted abroad, as well as difficulties in exchanging old-style dollars overseas.

However, experts note that using Visa and MasterCard involves certain difficulties, and additionally, there is a need to regularly report to the Federal Tax Service about the replenishment of accounts linked to these cards.-0-