Russia expects rise in Chinese tourists

Moscow is actively interacting with Beijing both at the government and business levels, while the Russian capital is expecting a significant increase in the number of Chinese visitors next year, said a senior Moscow tourism official.

Russia is becoming a popular tourist destination for Chinese visitors, whose numbers last year saw a fivefold rise from 2022.

According to official data, a record 244,000 Chinese tourists visited Moscow in 2023, and there were 55 direct flights every week to the Russian capital from the Chinese cities.

Moscow and Beijing are both capitals and top tourist destinations, providing a unique experience for travelers from all over the world, each with its unique history and culture, said Bulat Nurmukhanov, deputy chairman of the Moscow City Tourism Committee.

Authorities of the two cities have maintained close cooperation. Nurmukhanov said the Moscow City Tourism Committee has established close ties with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and the local representatives of the tourism industry.

In 2023, the Moscow City Tourism Committee led a business mission to Beijing. Representatives of the committee and Moscow's tourism companies met with their Chinese counterparts in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

He said this year, both countries organized roundtable conferences in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai as part of the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions tourism, or MICE tourism, where Moscow had invited 125 market leaders in tourism.

Joint projects

"In June 2024, Moscow and Beijing signed a program of cooperation. The main areas of cooperation were the exchange of experience and implementation of joint projects in trade, technology, healthcare and education, as well as culture and tourism," Nurmukhanov told China Daily.

Last year, China became the leading country in terms of tourist numbers to the Russian capital from non-CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries. The introduction of electronic visas and the introduction of a visa-free program for tourist groups from Aug 1, 2023, are some of the reasons for the increase in tourist numbers, Nurmukhanov noted.

A large number of Chinese tourists visited Russia, many of them businesspeople, who came to participate in commercial events. It seemed they knew what they wanted, and they were excited to see through their own eyes what they wanted to see.

"Chinese tourists are actively using these mechanisms to visit Moscow, and the country leads in terms of the number of e-visas issued in January-February 2024. China accounts for 53 percent of the e-visas issued in two months," Nurmukhanov added.

China and Russia decided to set 2024 and 2025 as China-Russia Years of Culture, with hundreds of cultural performances, including theater tours, exhibitions, stage arts, movies and library activities, scheduled to be held in both countries.

Culture and tourism activities help promote each other, Nurmukhanov said.