By Vestnik Kavkaza
The top-10 of the most popular countries among Russian tourists hasn’t changed from last year. It includes Turkey, Egypt, China, Thailand, Spain, Germany, Greece, Italy, the UAE, and Finland. As for the internal market, the Krasnodar Territory takes the lead.
Irina Tyrina, the representative of the Russian Union of Tourist Industry, told Vestnik Kavkaza that “the Krasnodar Territory is the most popular direction for Russians. 80% of tourists take beach holidays. Our country is cold with a long winter, and people want to get warm. For a long time it used to be Sochi first of all, but now Sochi is deep in preparation for the Olympics, and it is not so comfortable to holiday close to constructions, traffic jams, and people disperse to other resorts of the Krasnodar Territory – Bolshoi Sochi, Anapa, and Gelendzhik.”
According to Tyurina, in recent times Abkhazia began to gather pace: “It has always been in demand, but now the demand shifted. Unfortunately, the market capacity is small there. There are not so many resort houses, hotels which are full with Russians, it seems. There are no free rooms usually. Abkhazian resorts have a good contact with Russian tourist operators, they cooperate effectively. The most popular are Pitsunda, Gagry, Sukhumi. Abkhazia is a destination of nostalgia. When we were kinds and lived in one country, parents often took their children there. Pitsunda used to be thought to be a prestigious resort. Now it is a destination of nostalgia – grown-up children send their parents to it with their grandchildren. It is a family resort, and local residents treat Russian tourists kindly. This is the Caucasus of our childhood.”
