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The tourist flow to Russia became stable
09.07.2010
The tour operators specializing in incoming tourism note that the demand for Russia as a tourist destination has been recovering after crisis. This information can be confirmed by the data of the Federal State Statistics Service, according to which the number of foreign visitors increased by 1.3% during the first 3 months of 2010 in comparison with the first quarter of 2009 and amounted to 187 thousand people. At the same time, it’s early to be happy about the increase. The data of pre-crisis period was 245 thousand people during the first 3 months of 2008.
According to the Federal State Statistics Service, the leading country supplying the tourists for Russia in the first quarter of 2010, as well as during the same period of last year, turned to be Germany (24 624 people). If to compare this data with the indicators of 2009, the number of the Germans visited Russia increased by 7% with the share of 13.2%.
The 2nd place takes China (almost 15 thousand people). The Chinese increased their flow by 57% in comparison with the first quarter of 2009 and by 12% in comparison with the first quarter of 2008.
The 3rd place takes Finland. It’s interesting to note, that the popularity of Russia as travel destination has been decreasing constantly for the last several years. During the period from January to March of 2010, 13 thousand tourists from Finland visited Russia (15 thousand people in 2009 and 19 thousand people in 2008).
The 4th place takes France with increase of 7% in the first quarter of 2010 in comparison with the same period of 2009 (12 227 people). Italy is the last country which passed the milestone of 10 thousand tourists having 10 500 people.
Tour operators confirmed that the majority of the travellers arrive from the TOP 5 countries suppliers of the tourists.
Turkish market came close to the leaders (almost 10 thousand tourists). The tourist flow from Turkey to Russia increased by 28% during the first 3 months of 2010.
It’s interesting to note, that almost the same number of the tourists came to Russia from the UK, the USA and Israel. The dynamics of the tourist flow from the UK and the USA has negative tendency for the last 3 years, but Israel increased the number of tourists for last 2 years by 85%.
The tourist flow from the Netherlands increased by 50% in comparison with the last year and by 25% if to compare with 2008 (4 000 people).
The tourist flow from Scandinavian countries decreased more than by one third, in particular from Sweden and Norway (1800 tourists from each country).
To sum up, we can say that despite the increase of inbound tourists this year in comparison with the last year, the indicators of incoming tourism of Russia are still on a down level. For many reasons it can be explained by the high prices for the tours and insufficient number of the hotels of economy class with European level of service.
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