(Moscow) The number of tourists to Russia in 2022 fell by 96.1% under the effect of international sanctions imposed in the wake of the launch of the military intervention in Ukraine, reported professionals in the sector.
According to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), citing figures from the Russian Border Guard Service, only 200,100 foreign tourists entered Russia last year, more than 25 times less than the pre-pandemic level of 2019 when this figure had reached more than 5 million people.
“The reasons are obvious: the closed airspace between Russia and the vast majority of European countries, as well as the impossibility of using Visa and Mastercard cards issued by foreign banks in Russia,” noted in a statement on Tuesday. ATOR.
After the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine almost a year ago, Europe had almost completely closed its airspace to Russian planes. At the beginning of March 2022, the first Russian airline group, Aeroflot, even announced for a time the suspension of its international flights.
The number of foreign tourists to Russia in 2022 is even significantly lower than the levels recorded in 2020 (335,800 people) and 2021 (288,300), two years marked by major travel restrictions around the world linked to the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19.
According to data from Russian border guards analyzed by ATOR, German, Turkish and Iranian citizens represented in that order the three most frequent contingents of tourists in Russia last year.
As an indication, for Germans the announced figure of 25,400 tourists is 20 times lower than in 2019 when more than half a million German tourists entered Russia.
First foreign group in the country in 2019, Chinese tourists have almost disappeared, due to the impossibility of leaving their country where draconian health restrictions have been in force since the first months of 2020 due to COVID-19 .