The leading countries of inbound tourist flow to Russia

According to Amadeus statistics, in the first half of 2019, China, Germany, South Korea, Israel and Italy were among the five leaders of the source markets for Russia. 

Amadeus experts studied the dynamics of inbound flow into Russia for the first half of 2019. According to the company, a special increase in interest for Russia is observed among foreign tourists from China (+ 24.5%), South Korea (+ 26%), Israel (+ 6.2%) and Italy (+ 5%).  

“The broad scale data make it possible to analyze statistics of tourist flows and identify factors that influence the growth of the number of tourists, seasonality of demand, etc. Thus, for tourists from South Korea and Israel, a visa-free regime has been operating for several years. Tourists visiting the border regions of the Far East can get an electronic visa. For more than ten years, a visa-free regime has been operating between China and Russia for organized groups. The gradual increase in tourist flow from Italy is connected, among other things, with the opening of additional flights of Russian air carriers,” comments Leonid Marmer, the CEO of Amadeus Russian office. 

At the same time, according to Amadeus, compared with the last year’ data, there is a decrease in tourist flow from Germany (-4.3%), the Czech Republic (-4.6%) and France (-8.2%). “The statistics in this case are explained by the increased demand for trips to Russia during the World Cup in 2018. If we compare the indicators for these countries with the statistics of 2017, we will see a steady increase in the tourist flow. The World Cup has significantly increase interest for Russia, but now it’s important to be within the global tourism trends in order to maintain this interest,” adds Leonid Marmer.