By Vestnik Kavkaza
After summer shocks in the Russian tourist sphere, its future looks dim. Not all tourists are risking buying foreign tours, fearing to become hostages of the tourist business abroad. The fall in numbers of international tourists and a 30 percent increase in internal tourism are called one of the main trends of the year by experts. The popularity of Crimean resorts doubled among Russians in comparison with 2013.
Oleg Safronov, the acting head of the Federal Tourism Agency, highlights the growth in the number of tourists: “This summer a bigger number of Russians spent vacations in resorts (63 percent) in comparison with last year – 52 percent. Average expenditures on summer vacations were 29,700 rubles; for residents of St. Petersburg and Moscow the figure is bigger – 38 thousand; as for residents of the countryside – 21 thousand rubles.”
According to Safronov, in Crimea “plans for visiting have been fulfilled”: “We predicted that at least 3 million people would visit Crimea. The number is much greater than 3 million; but at the moment we won’t sum up the results of the tourist season in Crimea, as the figures will grow. We want to announce them in late December 2014. Anyway, it is great that the number of Russians who visited Crimea doubled this year.”
Safronov also spoke about changes in the sphere of Russian tourism: “The structure of the tourist market in our country has changed significantly. Our task is to support the changes happening, explain to our citizens that resorts in our country are of high quality and not expensive, including Sochi, where great infrastructure was constructed. So there is sense in travelling all over our country, as unfortunately we can see growth of various threats connected with a complicated epidemic situation.”
