The second and third quarters of the year are the traditional peak of the tourist season for Russia. For comparison, in the first quarter of 2019, foreigners made 470 thousand visits to the Russian Federation, in the second – 1,5 million visits. The same trend was observed every year. The only exception was the height of the pandemic, when all borders were closed.
In the first quarter of 2022, the Russian market saw a recovery trend in inbound tourism due to the widespread lifting of covid restrictions. However, in the second quarter of 2022, there was a sharp decline due to the geopolitical situation.
In the third quarter, only 65,9 thousand foreigners came to the Russian Federation with the purpose of tourism. According to the results of the three quarters of 2022, the inbound tourist flow to Russia amounted to 147,4 thousand trips of foreign citizens with the purpose of tourism.
For comparison: from January to September 2019, foreigners made 4,3 million visits to Russia for tourism purposes, and for the three quarters of the pandemic year of 2021 with its most severe restrictions, almost 176 thousand visits.
According to official statistics, Germany is on the first line in terms of tourist flow in the third quarter with 9,8 thousand visits. Obviously, tourist visas were mainly issued for visiting relatives in Russia.
The TOP-3 in terms of inbound tourism also includes Iran (9,6 thousand) and Turkey (6,2 thousand).
Further are Kazakhstan (3,7 thousand visits with tourism purposes), Uzbekistan (3,5 thousand), Latvia (3 thousand), Kyrgyzstan (2,3 thousand), Israel (2,1 thousand), India (1,8 thousand), Armenia (1,6 thousand), Turkmenistan (1,5 thousand), USA (1,5 thousand), Azerbaijan (1,2 thousand), South Korea (1,2 thousand), the UAE (1,1 thousand) and Lithuania (1 thousand). Less than 1 000 visits were made from the rest of the countries.
