According to the Minister of sport and tourism of Russia Mr. Vitaly Mutko, who met the representatives of tourists businesses on January the 20th, the sales on the Russian outcoming tourism market in 2010 will increase from USD 7,7 to USD 7,9 billion.
Due to economic and financial crisis the number of foreign tourists visited Russia dropped down by 7 percent. Number of Russian tourists abroad fell by 17 percent.
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The Norwegian tourists were among those who have most of all diminished their travels to Russia. For nine months of 2009 they were 16 percent less than in the same period two years ago.
At the same time the number of Swedish tourists to Russia increased by 18 percent. In the absolute figures the number of Norwegian and Swedish visitors became equal – around 24 thousand each for 9 months 2009. The Finns visited Russia 9 percent more than in 2008 and their number is almost 3 times higher than both Norwegians and Finns – over 124 thousand tourists.
The Russian Minister of tourism reported that during the next 5 years the federal budget will invest 96 billion rubles for tourism development in the country.
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Till 2016 the number of hotel beds will grow by 50% and the volume of tourists services will increase 5 times and make 400 billion rubles. Three billion rubles will be allocated for promotion of Russian tourists destinations abroad.
