The fall of the ruble increased the interest of foreign tourists to Russia

The interest of foreign tourists to Russia is growing against the backdrop of the ruble exchange rate, but the growth is due to the Asian rather than European markets, the press secretary of the Russian Union of Travel Industry Irina Tyurina said referring to incoming tour operators. The Moscow office of Amparus Tour noted that the growth of tourist arrivals is due to the decline of the ruble. Because of this, a trip to Russia costs twice less than a year earlier. As a result, compared to 2014, the interest of foreign tourists to Russia increased by 10-15%. Representatives of the company Troika agree: despite the negative background information about Russia and Ukraine, the decisive factor for foreign tourists is the price of a trip. The company Academservice named this summer even better than the successful 2013 year. The most bookings to Russia come from the residents of Southeast Asia, Spain, Italy and France. In St. Petersburg, according to official data, the number of foreign tourists increased by 50%. Moreover, only the number of tourists from China increased 2.5 times. Russia is also also interesting tourism destination for Turkey and Latin America. On Baikal tour operators note the increase of tourists' flow from China. In general, over the last year the proportion of foreigners in the total tourist flow to the region grew by 85%. In 2014, Baikal was visited by 147 thousand international tourists. This year the lake was visited mostly by guests from Bangladesh, Taiwan, Indonesia and Hong Kong. In general, experts say, the market has shifted from the European to the Asian market. The most promising and fastest growing of them are China, India, Middle East countries. In 2014 Russia was visisted by 32.4 million international tourists (an increase of 5%). Among them, 2.5 million (4% less than in 2013) with tourism purposes. During the first quarter of 2015 in Russia was visited by 7.3 million tourists, which is 16% more than in the same period a year earlier. Among them, 255 thousand tourists (minus 3%) with tourism purposes.