Finland is the leading northern destinations in the winter season

The interest of Russians to travel to the countries of Northern Europe this year has grown. According to tour operators, the northern European destinations sold well in the summer and are actively booked for the winter season and New Year holidays. “Russians have begun to travel more to Scandinavia and Northern Europe”, - says official statistics of the Federal State Statistics Service, as well as the tourist offices of northern countries. So according to the Federal State Statistics Service, in the first half of the year Russians made 1.54 million tourist trips to Finland (+ 21.8% in comparison with the same period of 2016), to Norway - 55 thousand trips (+ 19.6%), to Sweden - 26 thousand trips (+ 53%), to Denmark - 15 thousand trips (-12%). Some growth is also expected during the upcoming winter season. According to our estimates, it can be up to 10% against the season of 2016. As for Norway, the Head of Norwegian tourist office notes that Russian tourists still enjoy sea fishing, tours to Fjord Region and gastronomic tourism. Sergei Shkurov, the Head of the Russian branch of tourism development center in Finland “Visit Finland” said that according to preliminary estimates the growth of night stays from Russia in Finland amounted 18.7% in the first half of the year. And July-August period continues this positive dynamics. According to him, the positive dynamics is also noted by tour operators that sell Finland: in comparison with the last summer the demand grew from 20 to 50%. "From the winter season we expect the positive dynamics of growth and we expect by the end of the year to increase the Russian tourist flow by 20-25% against 2016", - Mr. Shkurov summed up.