There is enough space for everyone
In St. Petersburg, thanks to the national project “Tourism and Hospitality”, the hotel park is increasing rapidly. “Last year it grew by more than 500 rooms and this trend will continue in the medium term,” says the president of the St. Petersburg Tourism Development Committee, Sergei Korneev.
Now the city’s tourism industry faces a new challenge: the restoration and growth of international inbound tourism. Already this year, the city on the Neva plans to reach the level of tourist flow it had before the pandemic: 10.4 million tourists. “At the same time, the average bill of tourists increased by a third, that is, they began to spend more in St. Petersburg,” said Sergei Korneev.
The highest dunes in Europe
Route organizers in St. Petersburg strive to add new attractive routes to traditional attractions, adopting the useful experience of colleagues from other regions. For example, from the neighboring Kaliningrad region. The St. Petersburg Vedomosti newspaper reported on this.
In the Curonian Spit National Park, a river route has been opened along the waters of the Curonian Lagoon. It starts at the pier in the village of Rybachy and continues along the spit to the Efa Heights area. Tourists can see it from an unusual angle. As Olga Bolshakova, official representative of the park, explained, sea trips along the spit have long been popular, but the official river route was restored only a few years ago.
Recall that the Curonian Spit was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000. Travelers are especially impressed by the sand dunes (one of the largest in Europe), the height of which reaches 60 meters.
Cashback and modules
Tatarstan is well aware of the importance of state support for the region’s tourism industry. Over the past four years, local tourism has gone through periods from a complete standstill due to the pandemic, the threat of bankruptcies and business collapses, to a full recovery and even surpassing 2019 levels.
To save this area, timely measures were taken, including cash refund to support domestic tourism demand, programs for non-capital modular accommodation facilities and much more.
An important role was played by the program of preferential loans for the construction of hotels, which was significantly increased in 2024. “All this made it possible to save jobs, create new routes and, under the conditions of sanctions, provide residents of Russia and Tatarstan the conditions for an interesting and quality holiday in the republic,” says Sergei Ivanov, Chairman of the State Committee of the Republic of Tatarstan for Tourism.
Within the framework of the national project “Tourism and Hospitality”, Tatarstan will receive 125.9 million rubles this year. At the same time, 81% of the financing of the state program comes from the federal budget, the rest must be provided by the republic. Thus, the amount of money that will be allocated to the development of tourism in Tatarstan in 2024 will be 155.4 million rubles.
Earlier, Kazan Mayor Ilsur Metshin said that the new M-12 highway will attract a million tourists to the city. The mayor compared the toll road to the Great Silk Road.
Winners will be announced in June.
Collection of applications for the contest “Travel more!” ends May 24. The evaluation of these applications by independent experts will then begin. It will last until June 6.
And on June 13, the winners of the main categories and the Grand Prize will be determined. The award ceremony will take place on June 14 at the “Russia” forum-exhibition in Moscow at VDNKh.
Among the competition nominations are the promotion of new tourist destinations, cultural, educational and eventful, environmental and active tourism. And the “Place of Power” Grand Prize will receive the best publicity in promoting the region’s tourism potential.
Help “RG”
Last year, residents of our country made 78 million tourist trips to Russia (+21% compared to 2022).
The tourism industry attracted more than 800 billion rubles of private investment (+36% compared to 2022). 8.5 million foreign tourists visited Russia.
Within the framework of the national project “Tourism and Hospitality”, the State financially supports the construction of 167 large hotels in 55 regions, as well as nine ski resorts, ten water parks and three year-round amusement parks.
Read all the texts about national projects here.
