Russia could become one of world's five most-visited tourist destinations - Rosturizm
MOSCOW. July 13 (Interfax) - Russia, which is among the world's top ten countries for inbound tourism, must rise to the top five, Sergei Korneyev, deputy head of the Federal Tourism Agency (Rosturizm), told journalists on Wednesday.
"The UN World Tourism Organization says that Russia is among top ten countries for inbound international tourism. Our ambition is to be at least in the top five. We should take advantage of the situation: currently our tourism is rising, it is ready to make a new step," Korneyev said.
Last year inbound tourist flows to Russia stood at 4.5%, he said. "In some regions it rose by 8%, others saw inbound tourism increase by up to 15%. Those were either well-marketed and known regions, or ones that can offer something new and unique," Korneyev said.
This year Moscow is showing a good growth both in domestic and inbound tourism, he said. "On the one hand, this is the capital of the country, but on the other, we have always known it as a business and political center, but it only began developing as a center of tourism a few years ago. The city is doing good promotion, there are now many tourist programs, sites, pedestrian zones, parks, excursions - this is interesting both for our citizens and foreign tourists," the Rosturizm deputy chief said.
Other places becoming increasingly popular along with Moscow and St. Petersburg are the cities of the Golden Ring and Russia's northwest and Far East, Korneyev said.
According to the UNWTO, in 2016 Russia entered the top ten most-visited tourist destinations, having taken in 26 million tourists. The annual increase in tourist flow is 4-6%, whereas the average figure in other countries does not exceed 2%. According to the UNWTO, 31.6 million foreigners visited Russia last year, up 6.2% on 2014. By the UNWTO's counts, the figure is the highest in France (86.3 million), followed by the United States (77.9 million), Spain (68.1 million), China (56.9 million) and Italy (50.8 million).