21.03.09

Because of the world crisis, Russian citizens' travel abroad will decrease and travel in the native country will grow, Anatoly Yarochkin, the head of the Federal Agency for Tourism, told reporters on Thursday. "At a time when the number of foreign tourists visiting Russia is on the declines, the emphasis should be placed on domestic tourism, on travel in the native country," he said.

Yarochkin assessed the results of Russia's tourism business in 2008 as satisfactory on the whole, According to the Russian State Statistics Committee, over 11 million Russian tourists travelled abroad last years.

The number of tourists visiting China, Turkey, and Egypt and, particularly, Israel, increased. When the visa regime with Israel was dropped, the stream of tourists grew 118 percent, to reach 98,708 visits, double the number for 2007. Meanwhile the incidence of business travel to foreign countries decreased, especially to Great Britain and Japan. The number of business trips to these countries dropped by a quarter as compared with 2007.

Statistics showed the four percent growth in the number of tourists visiting Russia, while the number of tourists from different countries varies. There are fewer tourists from France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, while more citizens of Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Spain and Norway visit Russia.

Moscow and St Petersburg and their surroundings are foreign tourists' favourite itineraries in Russia, attracting some 80 percent of the total number of tourists. The head of the Federal Agency for Tourism believes foreign tourists will head in other directions this year, to Russian provinces, to the Urals and Siberia.

"The number of foreign tourists to visit Russia in 2009 may drop to the level of 2006," Yarochkin holds. He believes the way to compensate for the industry's losses is to develop domestic tourism.

Allocations for advertising of domestic tourism made up 50 million roubles this year, Yarochkin said.

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Source: Itar-Tass