More and more Russian tourists visit Norway, and the northern parts of the country are gaining popularity on the market. The number of Russian tourists increased 15 percent in 2011 compared to 2010.
Russians spent nearly 187 000 nights in hotels in Norway last year and now count for five percent of all tourists in the country.
The tour operator will have direct flights between Moscow and Tromsø every Friday in July. “This is the breakthrough of the year”, says Head of the Norwegian Tourist Council’s office in Russia Olga Filipenko to RIA Novosti. “Northern Norway is very beautiful and completely different from the fjord regions”.
What draws Russians to Northern Norway is first of all nature, fishing, the Lofoten islands, North Cape and Svalbard, Filipenko says. The fact that Norway is one of the most expensive countries of the world does not seem to scare Russians away: “This is not what people are thinking about when they visit Norway. They go there for the experiences, they want to go fishing and they want to see North Cape and the fjords”, Filipenko says to Norvegia.ru.
“Jazz Tours” has the largest Scandinavia-department of any tour operator in Russian, with 25 employees working full-time with the region. It is not yet know which airline company will be operating the route.
