Page 105 - RusRPTFeb19

9.1.9 Tourism sector news
The number of tourists visiting Moscow is expected to reach 23.5mn by the end of 2018, which is 9% more compared to 2017, the Moscow city government said in a statement on Wednesday. Post-Soviet countries aside, the tourist inflow to the Russian capital has increased by 40%. At the same time, compared to 2010, the tourist inflow to Moscow has risen by 12.8mn (84%), the city government pointed out. According to the statement, Moscow’s refurbished streets and parks, effective public transport, the growing number of hotels, large-scale cultural and sporting events is what attracts foreign tourists, as well as friendly atmosphere and better security.
In January-October 2018, Russians spent RUB756.4bn on tourist and business trips around the country, according to a Sberbank report on domestic tourism. This is one and a half times higher than industry standard market estimates. Sberbank explains this by taking into account all the associated expenses of tourists, as well as the cost of business travel. According to the bank's forecast, the size of the domestic tourism market for the year will amount to RUB900bn. (+ 10.3% y/y).
Only 30 regions receive net income from domestic tourism, says Sberbank . To determine the net income or loss, the bank in each region compared the expenses of visitors with the expenses of local residents on tourist and business trips around the country (for more information about the methodology, see the reference). Therefore, Moscow was only in ninth place in the Sberbank rating: visitors left a record URB141.7bn in the capital, but Muscovites themselves spent RUB138.3bn in other Russian cities. As a result, Moscow’s net export of tourist services amounted to only RUB3.4bn. .
The leader in terms of income from domestic tourism according to the Sberbank methodology has become the Krasnodar Territory, where the resort Sochi is located. With the "earnings" of the entire region since the beginning of the year at RUB60.51bn. (visitors left it to RUB91.99bn, and local people spent on travel RUB31.48bn) to Sochi accounted for 60.5bn, that is, more than 99.9% of all regional income from domestic tourism.
In second place in the ranking is St. Petersburg, which “received” RUB23.86bn. The third place is the Novosibirsk region with RUB5.4bn. The top ten leaders in addition to them and Moscow and its region are Vladimir and
105 RUSSIA Country Report February 2019 www.intellinews.com