The director of Moscow representative office of Lithuania Birute Nenartavichute has become a Chairman of Association of National Tourist Offices in Russia (ANTOR).

On Friday evening Association of Tour Operators of Russia has received an official statement from Lanta-Tour:

Abu Dhabi is getting more popular among the Russians. According to the results of 2011, the tourist flow from Russia increased by 44% and amounted to 14 thousand Russians. The growth of December amounted to 90% in comparison with the same month of 2010. It was the highest indicator after Indonesia.

Sochi ski resorts will be opened for the tourists during the testing competitions which will be held in February and March 2012. The restrictions will be only put on Roza Khutor, as this complex will be the major place for all the sport events of the Olympics, announces the press service of Mayor’s office.

Basic Element company (Basel), Sberbank of Russia and Singaporean Changi Airports International have signed an agreement about the joint venture for upgrading the airports of Kuban.

The Governor of Vologodskaya oblast Oleg Kuvshinnikov presented a whole year round project “Velikiy Ustyug is a homeland of Ded Moroz”.

According to the data of Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), the tourist flow from Russia to Thailand increased by 57% in 2011. Thailand received 1 014 000 Russian citizens in 2011. 

According to the Russian Aviation Authorities, the airports of Moscow sent 660 091 people during 9 days of 2012 (+10% in comparison with last year).

Dear colleagues and friends!

Let me wish you a Happy New Year! The past year was rather difficult for the Russian travel industry. Nevertheless, our travel market showed the stability to the global problems.  

Among our achievements was the beginning of large-scale federal target program concerning the effective promotional campaign of Russia for domestic and foreign markets.

I am sure that the next year will be successful for the travel industry and very interesting for the Russians from the perspective of the trips.

 

It’s planning to create several tourist recreational zones in Bolshoy Ussuriyskiy island and recreational wellness centres in some nature reserves by 2015 in the framework of the regional target program of the development of the domestic and inbound tourism in Khabarosvkiy kray.

The active development of the tourism has resulted in a growth of the tourists in Kaliningradskaya oblast: 420 thousand people visited the region in 2011.

Two new pages in English about Moscow have appeared recently in Facebook and VKontakte. The city authorities plan to spend 2 million rubles for promoting Moscow in social networks.

Association of Tour Operators of Russia held a press conference about the results of the year and the prospects for 2012.

The Russians take again the leading position in number of the visits to Hong Kong. According to the data of Hong Kong Tourism Authority, almost 117 thousand Russians visited the place during the period from January to November 2011 (+49.1% in comparison with the same period of 2010). Just to compare, 467 818 tourists came from the UK, 206 548 people from Germany and 215 317 travellers from France.

According to the Tourism Counsellor Bureau of Hungary, the Russians spent 379 thousand nights in the hotels of Hungary during the period from January to October 2011 (+16.7%).