Domestic Tourism in Russia Likely Fall Smaller and Growing Less Quickly than Moscow Routinely Claims

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 10 – Russians often say that their country is remarkable in that all of its domestic policies have led to the growth of tourism abroad while all of its foreign policies lead to more tourism within its borders (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/11/moscows-foreign-policy-always-promotes.html).

            And so it is no surprise that, as foreign travel has become more difficult following the launch of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, Moscow has promoted travel within the country and routinely declares that it has had enormous success and will continue to do so (e.g., readovka.news/news/236401/).

            But reports from Russia’s federal subjects suggest that such claims are problematic, sometimes for understandable reasons as in Krasnodar where tourism is down 15 percent because of oil spills last year (kavkaz-uzel.info/articles/419811) and perhaps more generally because of statistical sleight of hand.

            Writing in The Siberian Economist, journalist Artyom Aleksandrov says that residents of Kamchatka have long assumed they are experiencing a tourist boom because of Moscow’s claims but the facts on the ground are likely otherwise given that no reliable numbers about tourism are being released (sibmix.com/?doc=19417).

            According to the Kamchatka authorities, the number of tourists coming to Kamchatka has grown from approximately 240,000 in 2019 to over 300,000 in 2021 and to some 800,000 last year. “Formally,” Aleksandrov says, “all these data are correct – if one considers anyone who flies to Kamchatka to be a tourist.”

            These figures in fact reflect all the passengers handled by Kamchatka’s main airport who have not immediately flown on to other destinations, he continues; but they include many people who are coming or going to the region for other than touristic reasons, including businessmen and officials and local people travelling to other federal subjects.

            The Russian emergency situations ministry which tracks people who are visiting the kind of sites tourists do come to Kamchatka to see gives figures vastly lower because it doesn’t count the other categories that Kamchatka officials and likely Moscow officials speaking about the growth of domestic tourism include as well.

            Aleksandrov does not speculate as to how widespread this form of self-congratulatory fabrication of data is in Russia; but it is likely to be found in many places – and that in turn makes the summary numbers claimed in Moscow almost certainly wildly inflated and quite incorrect.