Russians stop traveling abroad for summer holidays

Russian citizens prefer to spend their summer holidays inside the country, and this trend has been getting stronger every year, specialists of Rostourism (Federal Tourism Agency) noted.

Most of the tickets for May holidays in Russia were sold for domestic destinations. According to the agency, this is the highest level since 2011.

Rostourism chief Oleg Safonov said that traveling around Russia became more comfortable in light of infrastructure development and improvement of the tourist environment.

According to Aviasales, at least two-thirds of Russian travellers opted for Russian destinations this year with Moscow, Sochi, Simferopol, Krasnodar, St. Petersburg, Mineralnye Vody, Makhachkala and Kaliningrad being among the leaders.

At the same time, Russian tourists spent $31 billion abroad in 2017, which is $7 billion more (+13%) than a year earlier, according to the World Tourism Organisation at the United Nations.

Chinese and American tourists spend most during their trips abroad. Tourists from China spent slightly less than $260 billion in overseas trips. US tourists spent 135 billion dollars, which was 12 billion more than a year earlier.

The largest number of foreign tourists to Russia come from China. Germany comes second.

Pravda.Ru

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