Number of foreign trips made by Russian tourists up 50% in 2023

MOSCOW. Nov 7 (Interfax) - Russian tourists made seven million foreign trips in January-September 2023, up 50% from the same period of 2022, while the total number of international trips grew 20.5% to 21 million, the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUTI) said, citing the Federal Security Service's Border Service.

"Russian tourists went on 7.06 million international trips between January and September, up 50.2% from the respective period of 2022 (4.7 million) but twice fewer compared to the pre-pandemic year 2019 (14.08 million). The total number of international trips of all kinds stood at 21 million in January-September. This is 23% more, compared to the first nine months of 2022 (17.1 million)," RUTI said.

For now, outbound tourism levels are far behind those of the pre-pandemic period. The number of foreign tourist trips stood at 14.08 million, while the number of foreign trips of all kinds hit 35.2 million in the first three quarters of 2019.

"The three top tourist destinations remain unchanged since 2022. These are Turkey (3.4 million trips), the United Arab Emirates (922,600), and Egypt (739,200). All of these three countries saw many more Russian tourist arrivals then they did a year ago. The numbers grew 24%, 68% and 50.7%, respectively. But there has been some change in the top ten. Thailand (519,700 trips) and China (135,900) regained their leading positions, while the Maldives and Serbia left the top ten. Among the five CIS countries in last year's rating, Armenia (335,900), Uzbekistan (121,900), Azerbaijan (116,900) and Kazakhstan (113,300) retained their positions, while Kyrgyzstan dropped to 13th place. Cuba (93,900) appeared among the top ten destinations for Russian tourists for the first time," RUTI said.

The top 20 destinations for Russian tourists also include Sri Lanka (81,500), the Maldives (72,300), Kyrgyzstan (55,800), Serbia (50,200), India (45,200), Qatar (43,300), Georgia (33,700), Israel (27,700), Oman (18,200), and Tajikistan (15,900).

"Countries that have direct flights from Russia are showing growth. Border control at Russian airports records the first point of landing for statistics, regardless of where the person is actually going, even if a ticket indicates the final point of the route. Therefore, in the Russian Border Service's data, based on the results for nine months, travel to those countries where Russian tourists fly on connecting flights is zero," RUTI Vice-President Dmitry Gorin said.

As a result, European countries except for Serbia are not included in the rating of tourist destinations although the number of tourists visiting them is far from zero, he said.

Hence, the emergence or expansion of direct transportation, given the low numbers for last year, allowed Thailand, China, Sri Lanka, Cuba, India, Georgia, Tunisia, Morocco and other countries to show a colossal increase in tourist flows, he said.

The list of the top ten countries for travel for all purposes is headed by Abkhazia (4.6 million trips). In second place is Turkey (4.59 million), and Kazakhstan ranks third (2.3 million). Also in the top ten are the UAE (1.2 million trips), Egypt (920,000), Armenia (890,000), Georgia (880,000), Thailand (690,000) and China (610,000). Among European countries, only Finland was included in it, which more than 500,000 Russians traveled to.