Inbound tourism growth not to exceed 3%-4% in 2025 - Russian Union of Travel Industry

20 Nov 2025 18:37 Inbound tourism growth not to exceed 3%-4% in 2025 - Russian Union of Travel Industry MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) - The growth of inbound tourism will not exceed 3%-4% in 2025, which is twice less than in 2024, Sergei Romashkin, general director of the Delfin tour operator and Russian Union of Travel Industry expert, said. "Inbound tourism is in a long-term growth phase. We see a lot of projects, primarily infrastructure ones, which will produce an effect in a couple of years and probably even this year or in the coming 2026. But growth is slowing down. And we believe that it will not exceed 3%-4% this year. It's twice less than last year, when it was 10%. And my forecast for next year is a further slowdown," he said at the 21st congress of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, held in Moscow on Thursday. "We need to say here that we still don't have reliable, quality statistics. But we know objectively that RZD long-distance transportation has dropped 0.5%, and domestic flights in Russia have dropped 3.8%, almost four percent. And still it's a big share of the market, if railroad and air transportation declines, these are certain symptoms," Romashkin said. The key factors that contributed to the slowdown of inbound tourism are the general slowdown of the consumer market and Russians cutting back on major expenses to save money. "The second reason is high vacation prices. I have analyzed our statistics for 2022. The prices increased by some 50%-55% over the past three years. Obviously, incomes did not increase accordingly in that period. There is a gap between our tourists' capabilities and high vacation prices, and this gap continues increasing. Plus, the strong ruble made travelling abroad cheaper. The ruble gained 20%-22% over a year," Romashkin said. A certain role in the reduction of inbound tourism was played by the crisis in Anapa and flight problems, he said. The Russian Union of Travel Industry needs to keep working to reduce the fiscal burden on businesses and to reduce the tourist tax on hotels as its further increase will reduce hotel occupancy, he said. Russian Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said earlier at the congress that 69 million tourist trips had been made in Russia over nine months, which is a five percent increase from last year. Tourism in Russia is now growing at a "more reserved rate," he said.