Rail-cruise journeys planned in Russia to attract China tourists

Chinese tourists traveling by train in Russia may enjoy this year a new format of railway cruises as part of JSC Federal Passenger Company plans to develop inbound railway tourism and see a growing flow of Chinese tourists, its press service told Tass on Monday. In these projects of JSC’s daughter company RZhD Tour, tourists will be entitled to a so-called package ‘on a turnkey basis,’ which will include flights from and to China, travels on special trains or a group of trailing cars with sightseeing programs on their way, the press service said. Its source said all tours would have Chinese-speaking guides and ‘all-inclusive’ meals. The press service said a flow of Chinese tourists traveling to Moscow and Russia’s second biggest city of St. Petersburg could grow in summer to 100,000 people. Last year, the company organized several tourist trains traveling across central Russia, and more than 700 Chinese tourists traveled on them. "Planes are to have at least 3,000 tourists in 2016," the press service said. In 2015, a pilot train tour was launched from Manchuria to Irkutsk in Russia’s Siberia, and a 12-day information tour between the Siberian Chita and Yekaterinburg in the Urals was organized in March for Chinese tour operators, the Federal Passenger Company said.