Chinese tourism to Russia surges sevenfold – data

Russia has welcomed seven times as many Chinese visitors compared to last year, with overall tourist traffic tripling since the start of the year, RBK reported on Friday, citing data from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

There were 13 million trips by foreign citizens to Russia from January to September 2024, up 11% from the same period last year, according to data from the FSB border service. That’s 1.3 million more trips than in the same period last year.

During that time, the number of tourist trips to Russia tripled to 1.2 million, up from 429,100 in the same period in 2023, according to FSB statistics.

The data also reflects growing demand from Chinese tourists, who made 731,800 trips from January to September – almost seven times more than in the same period last year, when 105,800 trips were made.

Analysts noted that although Chinese demand for trips to Russia is growing, it is still far from recovering to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019, when 1.2 million Chinese tourists visited Russia in three quarters.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the majority of foreign tourists in Russia came from China, including more than 80% as part of tourist groups under a visa-free agreement.

The surge in the tourist flow from China has been spurred by the facilitation of entry visa rules between the countries and the launch of online visa services, RBK cited the PR director at Intourist travel company, Daria Domostroyeva, as saying. Currently, travelers from the Asian country account for 65% of the overall tourist traffic from abroad.

There are no longer a significant number of flights between Russia and EU countries due to the Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. As a result, the country’s tourist industry has switched its focus to Asia and the Middle East.

The researchers also highlighted growing interest in visiting Russia from other destinations such as Iran, Türkiye, the UAE, and India. Russia also saw a nearly twelvefold surge in tourists from Saudi Arabia, with 39,100 arrivals in the first nine months of the year compared to just 3,300 in the same period last year.