In the first quarter of 2018 Russians made almost 12% more tourist trips abroad

“In the first quarter of 2018 Russians made 7.48 million tourist trips abroad, which is 11.5% more than a year earlier”, - according to statistics published by Rosstat. In the first quarter of 2017 6.7 million foreign trips were made from Russia and during the same period in 2018 - 7.48 million. The growth of tourist flow abroad after the crisis 2015 and 2016 years continues, but slowed in comparison with the first quarter of 2017, when it was 24%. The most popular countries of visits are Abkhazia (797 thousand trips), Finland (737 thousand), Kazakhstan (521 thousand), Thailand (491 thousand), Ukraine (416 thousand), China (413 thousand), Estonia 410 thousand), the United Arab Emirates (353 thousand), Germany (286 thousand) and Turkey (229 thousand). The second twenty included Italy (213,000), Vietnam (173,000), Georgia (163,000), Spain (134,000), Lithuania (128,000), Czech Republic (118,000), India (105,000), France (101 thousand), Latvia (81 thousand), Armenia (79 thousand). Within the TOP 20 countries the most significant increase of the number of Russian tourists have the United Arab Emirates (+ 68%), Turkey (+ 66%), Thailand (+ 29%), Italy and Armenia (+ 22%), Georgia (+ 20%), Abkhazia (+ 19%), Vietnam (+ 15%). The tourist flow to China for the same period, on the contrary, decreased by 4%. The record of the growth of the Russian tourist flow in the first quarter showed Portugal - in 2.6 times, from 5 to 13 thousand people. This is due to the opening in July 2017 of a daily flight from Moscow to Lisbon by Aeroflot airline. Among leaders is Qatar - in the first quarter of 2018 45 thousand Russians visited the country, which is almost twice as much as during the same period a year earlier. Experts connect this result with the abolition of visas to the Emirate for Russians in August 2017.