Russians make 17.4 mln trips abroad in Jan-Sept 2022 - Border Service
MOSCOW. Nov 7 (Interfax) - Russian citizens made a total of 17.4 million trips abroad in the first three quarters of 2022, including over 4.7 million trips for tourism purposes, according to Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Border Service statistics.
The total number of trips abroad made by Russians in 9M22 increased 13.8% compared with the same period in 2021. In particular, 3.8 million Russians travelled abroad in Q1, 4.57 million in Q2, and 8.9 million in Q3 of 2022.
The most popular destinations for Russian travelers were Abkhazia (4.4 million trips), Turkey (3.5 million), Kazakhstan (2 million), the UAE (743,600), and Finland (731,200). The top ten also included Egypt, Armenia, Estonia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan.
The number of trips made by Russians for tourism purposes in 9M22 (4.74 million) dropped by nearly two-thirds compared to the same period in pre-pandemic 2019 and grew by 125,000 compared to 9M21.
The most popular tourism destinations were Turkey (2.7 million trips), the United Arab Emirates (548,600), Egypt (490,500), Armenia, (199,300), Uzbekistan (82,700), Maldives (66,300), Kazakhstan (62,500), Azerbaijan (54,900), Kyrgyzstan (48,400), and Serbia (31,900).
Russian Union of Travel Industry spokesperson Irina Tyurina told Interfax the statistical number of outbound trips to certain countries this year does not always count the real number of trips made by Russians there because of the absence of direct transport links along certain routes.
"Border guards at airports record only the first air destination regardless of where a person actually travels, even if their ticket indicates the final destination. And if a tourist flies to Thailand via Almaty or to Bulgaria via Istanbul, it's Kazakhstan and Turkey respectively that get another tourist, according to statistics. And Thailand and Bulgaria get nothing," she said.
As a result, the FSB Border Service accounted for only 26,000 Russians who visited Thailand from January-September 2022, while the Thai authorities recorded 90,000 Russian tourists in the same period, Tyurina said. Russian statistics accounted for only 13,800 Russians who visited Sri Lanka in the first half of 2022, while the local authorities recorded over 43,000 of them.
For the same reason, the number of Russian tourists who actually visited Turkey or the UAE is lower than might seem from Russian statistics, as some of them were transit passengers, Tyurina said.
In Q3, Russians made 2.4 million tourist trips, including 1.7 million to Turkey, 203,000 the UAE, 144,700 to Egypt, 94,200 to Armenia, 42,800 to Uzbekistan, 38,100 to Azerbaijan, 37,500 to Kazakhstan, 32,500 to Kyrgyzstan, 19,000 to Abkhazia, and 23,600 to Maldives.
