Tourist market in Russia will resume growth next year

The demand for organized tourism, which was fallen rapidly over the past three years, may start to increase again in 2017 thanks to foreign destinations. “In 2017 the number of organized Russian tourists can grow by 15% (7.5 million people)”, - predicts Promsvyazbank in its report. According to its chief analyst Igor Nuzhdin, 2016 has become the “bottom” of tourism market, and then the market will begin a gradual recovery of volumes. As a result, in 2017 the number of Russians tourists will grow by 27.5% (to 5.1 million people), in contrast - the number of domestic tourists could be reduced by 1% (to 2.4 million). The total growth of tourist flow on abroad destination will be provided by tours to Turkey, which was previously visited on the average by 1.4 million Russians annually. It will also be a cause of decrease in sales of domestic routes. "The growth of domestic tourist flow in 2016 was mostly provided by the closure of Turkey and Egypt", - reminds I.Nuzhdin. Despite the positive trends, Promsvyazbank predicts, that in 2020 8.7 million Russians will leave to abroad tours, which nearly corresponds to the number of 2012 (8.9 million Russians) and 12% below the historical high, reached in 2013 (9, 9 million).