In the first nine months of 2018, almost four million foreign tourists visited Russia. At the same time, the total inflow of foreign citizens to Russia grew by only 1.9%, according to statistics from the border service of the country.
According to the data, in total, from January to September 2018, 25.5 million foreigners visited Russia. Of these, 3.94 million indicated tourism as the goal of their arrival – this is 20.3% more than in the same period in 2017.
Traditionally, two thirds and more of all foreigners come to Russia from the neighboring or near countries such as Ukraine (7.2 million), Kazakhstan (3.3 million), Uzbekistan (1.9 million), Tajikistan (1.1 million) or Armenia (639 thousand). In the first nine months of 2018, more than 17 million people (66.5% of the total entry flow) entered Russia from these countries.
With data from the first three quarters of 2018, China remains the main supplier of tourists to Russia. From January to September of this year, 1.1 million Chinese visited Russia, indicating tourism as the purpose of their visit. In total, over the nine months, 1.7 million Chinese visited Russia for various purposes. Tourism traffic from China grew by 11% over the same period last year.
Germany is in second place with 396.8 thousand tourists, while Korea is third (277 thousand). The top five was closed by tourists from the USA (213.5 thousand) and Israel (130.3 thousand). Great Britain, Italy, France, Spain and Japan are also among the main suppliers of tourists.