Association of Tour Operators of Russia expecting 100 mln domestic tourist trips in 2024

MOSCOW. Sept 12 (Interfax) - Up to 100 domestic tourist trips are expected in Russia this year, including about 50 million trips taken in summer, Association of Tour Operators of Russia Vice President Sergei Romashkin said.

"Our tourists took about 50 million trips around Russia in summer, which gives us reason to believe that the final numbers of the year will pass the psychologically important level of 100 million trips. That is a huge number. Perhaps, we could not even dream about it a couple of years back," Romashkin said.

The Tourism and Hospitality national project sets the ambitious goal of 130 million to 140 million trips by 2030, he said. "As we can see, the annual increase in tourism inside Russia by 6%-8% allows us to achieve the objective by 2030 in a quite natural manner and without particular shocks," he said.

Earlier, the Economic Development Ministry forecasted 90 million domestic tourist trips in 2024, which is 30% more than in the pre-pandemic year 2019.

A specific feature of 2024 was the very early start of summer bookings, Romashkin said.