RUSSIA: Russia Has Significant Potential In Developing Domestic And Incoming Tourism

Last year, Russia made it to the top 10 of the world's most visited countries.

Russia ranked 43rd, ahead of Turkey, in the World Economic Forum's Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index in 2016, said Oleg Safonov, Head of the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism.

The Russian Federation generally records over 30 million international tourist arrivals annually, a number, which will most certainly go up given the expected tourist volumes for the upcoming FIFA Confederation Cup and even more so for the 2018 World Cup, said Fang Liu, Secretary General, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Tourism generates strong fiscal revenues. In 2016, tourism had an economic impact of ca. RUB 250 billion, said Georgy Poltavchenko, Governor of St. Petersburg.

Russia is underinvested in tourism. If you are looking at the big international picture, you can always see countries which have good infrastructure and which are quite dynamic in pushing tourism.

They have proportion of tourism in the GDP of approximately 10%. Russia is below this level, said Klaus Mangold, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, TUI.

It is no secret that many museums have not been renovated since the Soviet times, said Dmitry Mironov, Acting Governor of Yaroslavl Region.

Potential barriers to visiting Russia include visas, having cheap flights, making sure that there are quality facilities, said Olivier Gremillon, Managing Director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Airbnb Inc.

Promoting Russian tourism inside and outside the country is impossible without having a tourist brand. 146 out of 195 countries do have tourist brands. Unfortunately, our country is one of the few without such a brand, said Oleg Safonov.

It is hard to overestimate the importance of this programme, as it covers the entire country from its Western to the Far Eastern borders and all the way from the North to the South.

This is a key consideration. Without the public-private funding and cooperation schemes, we are doomed to fail in maintaining the high growth rates, said Oleg Safonov.

Russian tourism has a significant potential waiting to be unlocked by private investors. What we need is a serious private investor who knows how to do business," said Svetlana Orlova, Governor of Vladimir Region.

We must recognise the importance of small tourist initiatives as an add-on to the big tourist projects.

We need to engage with intellectuals and enthusiasts who come up with interesting initiatives and know how to implement them,said Sergey Bachin, General Director, Roza Khutor.

We need to put new programmes in place. We work to promote such high-potential areas as industrial and culinary tourism. This year, we are going to pilot an underwater archaeology diving project at the Rybinsk Reservoir,” said Dmitry Mironov.

Several years ago, we introduced visa-free 72-hour visits to St. Petersburg for cruise passengers coming from the EU.

I believe that this was a good and useful initiative, and we should apply it to other means of transport, too, said Georgy Poltavchenko.

High quality tourist infrastructure. We are only starting to address this high priority infrastructural challenge. It requires increasing the number of hotel rooms, constructing new accommodation facilities, developing itineraries, and offering efficient transportation solutions, said Sergey Bachin.

We believe that building a strong tourist brand will effectively promote and stimulate both domestic and incoming tourism in Russia,said Oleg Safonov.

On Friday, the Russian Tourism Road Show, arranged by the Russian Federal Tourism Agency, took place in the Japanese capital of Tokyo.

The event was aimed at introducing Russia’s tourism potential to Japan.

"There are huge opportunities as far as tourism cooperation between Russia and Japan is concerned," head of the Russian embassy’s consular department Mikhail Sergeyev said addressing the show. He added that the two countries’ governments were striving to boost tourism ties between Russia and Japan and develop tourism business in Russia.

"In the coming years, many interesting international events are going to take place in Russia, including the FIFA World Cup," a spokesman for the Japanese association of tourist agencies said adding that it was the perfect time to visit Russia.

The Russian Tourism Road Show involved various Russian regions, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Republic of Buryatia and Primorsky region.

Bulgaria, Greece Lure Russian Tourists

Both Greece and Bulgaria, two of Turkey’s neighbors, have stepped forward to lure Russian tourists, who have abstained from their most popular destination as part of Moscow sanctions on Ankara due to the downing of Russian military plane last November.

Greece has started granting three-year visas for Russian tourists with a single-day procedure, as Bulgaria has lowered its visa fees.

Last year, some 3.5 million Russian tourists visited Turkey, where they enjoyed visa-free travel. Many of them chose “all-inclusive” packages offered by hotels in the country’s Mediterranean and Aegean resorts.

Oleg Safonov, the head of the Russian Tourism Agency, told RSN, a Moscow-based radio, that Bulgaria and Greece were in action to replace Turkey.

Greece has opened new visa offices in Russia and employed more staff, in a bid to break a 2013 record of 1.5 million Russian visitors, he said.

Bulgaria, meanwhile, has stopped demanding fingerprints from Russian visitors.

Ankara and Moscow have been at odds since Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet operating in Syria on Nov 24, 2015, for insistent violation of its airspace.

Scheduled flights between Russia and Turkey by the two countries’ flag carriers have dropped almost 50 percent along with the number of passengers after the downing of Russian jet since then, a Turkish tourism executive said last week.

A total of 22,106 people from Russia visited Turkey in January, a decline of 56.7 percent compared to the same month of the previous year.

However, Russia’s federal tourism agency Rostourism restored 13 out of 19 licenses of Turkish-owned tour operators that were revoked as part of Moscow’s sanctions, as reported by Russian media on March 16.

One tourism player claimed that only 55 Russians visited Antalya in February.

Dmitry Gorin, the vice-president of the Russian Tour Operators, said Russian tourists were instead choosing Greek Cyprus along with Greece and Bulgaria this year, and were also interested in southeastern Asia.

Russians have placed 20 to 30 percent more bookings in total when compared with a year earlier, he said, adding that the Egypt route was still not open.

Gorin told Russia Today earlier last week that Gorin, Russian tourists were “a rather tricky task” for Albania, as the Muslim country had strong rivals such as neighboring Montenegro and Greece as well as Bulgaria, Greek Cyprus and Russia’s own Black Sea resorts.

“There are 230 resort hotels in the country that can accommodate a total of 8,000 people [but lack the] Turkish-style ‘all inclusive’ format that was so popular among Russian tourists,” he said, also highlighting the lack of direct flights.

RUSSIA: Russia Tourism Boosted By Weak Ruble

The weakening of the ruble has helped Russia to attract more tourists.

According to estimates by the Russian Tourism Industry Union, the number of tourists visiting Russia has increased by 13 percent in the first nine months of the year, compared with the same period in 2014.

In total, foreign tourists have made 2.54 million trips to Russia between January and September this year, which is the highest amount since 2008, the report said.

Chinese tourists became the largest group of foreign tourists to Russia in the first nine months of the year, accounting for 22.9 percent of the total amount of foreign travelers visiting Russia, according to data from the Russian Tourism Industry Union.

Germany came in second with 12.6 percent of the total number of visits followed by the U.S. with a 6 percent share and Turkey, accounting for 4.6 percent of the total number of tourists, according to the report.

Vladimir Kantorovich, first vice president of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, attributes the growth of the number of tourists visiting Russia to the weakening of the ruble, which lost more than 40 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of last year.

Russia became a very cheap destination for many tourists, Kantorovich said.

While the number of foreign tourists traveling to Russia is growing, the outbound tourism in Russia has been reeling from the economic recession and the ruble drop.

Since the beginning of the year, the tourist flow from Russia fell by 31.4 percent, Oleg Safonov, the head of Russia's federal tourism agency Rostourism, said.

Apart from the economic causes, the outbound tourism in Russia has been affected by Russia's recent ban on flights to Egypt imposed after the crash of the Russian passenger plane in the Sinai Peninsula as a result of a terrorist attack, as well as the ban on selling package tours to Turkey after the downing of the Russian warplane near the Syrian border.

In addition, Russia will introduce visa requirements for Turkish citizens starting on Jan. 1, 2016 as part of the sanctions against the country, which can have a negative impact in the development of the inbound tourism in Russia.

According to the statistics, Turkey represents a significant growth in the number of tourists going to Russia.

In the first nine months of the year, the number of tourists from Turkey visiting Russia has increased by 15.6 percent, compared with the same period last year, according to data from the Russian Tourism Industry Union.