Russian Outbound Travel Takes 24 Percent Nosedive in 2015

There seems to be a downturn in Russian outbound tourism. Total number of trips Russians abroad in the first half of 2015 dropped by 24 percent compared to the corresponding period in 2014 and is estimated at 16.4 million, while tourism trips went down by nearly 34 percent, Russia’s Federal Agency for Tourism announced, citing data of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service.

The tourist flow drop affected almost all countries in top 45 of Russians’ most popular destinations.

Egypt turned out to be the most preferred holiday destination in the first half of 2015. Some 1,054,000 Russians visited it, which is a decrease of 13.4 percent compared to the 2014 period.

Egypt managed for the first time in five years to take over the first place from Turkey, which is traditionally a leader in terms of Russians’ tourism trips.

Some 1,031,000 Russians have had a holiday in Turkey since the beginning of the year, which is a 25.7 percent drop.

Germany is third in terms of the number of Russian citizens’ tourism trips. Holiday makers from the Russian Federation were about 284,200, which is a 29.6 percent fall compared to last year.

Cheap Bulgarian beaches are highly popular this season and are offered in Russian tourist agencies more than last year unlike Italian beaches, demand for which has declined.

Among the rest of the destinations in the first six months of 2015, nearly 177,000 Russian tourists spent their holidays in Greece (a drop of 53.5 percent), 91,500 Russians went to Israel (a drop of 29 percent), while 124,500 Russians holidayed in Bulgaria (a drop of 36.3 percent).