Russian tourists spent over $300 bln abroad over past 20 years - Deputy PM Chernyshenko

MOSCOW. March 31 (Interfax) - Russian tourists spent over $300 billion abroad over the past 20 years, and their money was actually invested in building foreign tourism infrastructure, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko said.

"A European monitoring agency said yesterday that the world would lose $7 billion due to the absence of Russian tourists. It is up to us to make sure that the Russian tourism industry gets those $7 billion. The actual amount is much bigger. Because, in fact, over $300 billion have been taken away from Russia over the past 20 years and spent on building and developing the infrastructure in every popular international destination," Chernyshenko said at a government meeting with tourism industry actors.

"Our country has been waiting for such investment for too long," Chernyshenko said.

The Russian tourism infrastructure has been demonstrating a rocketing growth over the past year, and it is important not to lose this pace under the current circumstances, he said.