Federal Tourism Agency notes surge of Chinese tourist flows into Russia on visa-free basis

MOSCOW, November 29 /TASS/. Russia has seen a 40% upsurge in the number of Chinese tourists who travel on visa-free package tours since 2016, Oleg Safonov, the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism (Rostourism) said in a TASS interview on Tuesday. "The Chinese make up a considerable part of inbound tourism flows with 1.12 mln Chinese entering Russia last year," the agency chief said. "The number of Chinese tourists coming to Russia - on organized visa-free group tours in particular - had doubled over the past three years. According to the Russian Committee for Statistics, the number of package tours increased by 41% in the first 9 months of 2016 compared to last year’s indicators," Safonov stressed. He added that "tourism flows from China had been on the rise over the past five years ever since the two countries conducted reciprocal years of tourism." Russia and China signed an inter-governmental agreement on visa-free trips for organized tour groups (those who book their tours through travel agencies) in 2000. According to Rostourism, 27 million foreign tourists visited Russia in 2015. Most of the travelers were from Poland, Finland, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Southeast Asian states. Safonov said that Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Ulyanovsk, the northern Vologda region, Lake Baikal, the Golden Ring of old Russian towns and Crimea were the most popular tourist destinations for foreigners. The bulk of foreign tourists who visit Russia book package tours through tour companies. The major international tour operators, which send foreigners to Russia, are Intourist, Spectrum, Wand and Mouzenidis Intour. "China, the European countries and the United States have a developed market of package tours, which are much cheaper and economical than individual tours. That is why most travelers from the said countries arrive in Russia together with organized tourist groups. Citizens of Belarus and other CIS countries visit Russia predominantly as individual tourists," Safonov concluded. Crimea will preserve visa-free mechanisms for Chinese tourists in 2017 under a Russian-Chinese agreement allowing Russian and Chinese tourists to cross borders without visas, the Crimean Ministry of Resorts and Tourism reported earlier this month. "The Ministry of resorts and tourism is preparing a list of travel operators willing to receive and service Chinese tourists in 2017," the ministry’s report said adding the lists of tourism operators would be ready before the year’s end. Crimea, which became part of Russia after the March 2014 referendum, used visa-free schemes to receive the first official group of Chinese tourists in September 2016. The second group of Chinese tourists visited the peninsula a month later. Read more