Sobyanin announced 18 million tourists visiting Moscow in 2022

The number of tourists visiting Moscow increased to 17.9 million people in 2022, informed Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin in his blog. This is 1 million more people than in 2021 and 4.3 million more than in 2020. In 2019, 25.1 million tourists visited Moscow.

“The tourist flow has reached 17.9 million guests. One million people more than in 2021. And a worthy 71% of the tourist flow compared to the record pre-Covid 2019,” he said.

At the same time, revenues of the city hospitality industry in 2022 increased immediately by 22.7% compared to 2021, reaching 879.1 billion rubles. The capital budget received 120.4 billion rubles from this direction. income.

“With these funds, you can build 40 new schools and kindergartens … Or finance free public transport for pensioners, large families and other beneficiaries of Moscow,” Sobyanin commented on these figures.

Domestic tourism continues to play a paramount role in the development of the industry: more than 90% of tourists come to Moscow from other Russian regions, Sobyanin stressed. More often than others, residents of St. Petersburg, the Krasnodar Territory, the Vladimir, Tula and Nizhny Novgorod regions come to the capital. On average, a trip lasts 5 days and costs 37,300 rubles.

At the same time, business tourism has fully recovered (up to 20% of all trips), the share of medical tourism has doubled (up to 5.4%), and children’s tourism is also developing, the mayor of the city drew attention.

The 1.7 million foreign tourists who visited Moscow in 2022 mostly came from India, Turkey and Iran, Sobyanin added.

Earlier in January, at a meeting of President Vladimir Putin with government members, issues of developing domestic tourism were discussed. The head of the Ministry of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, in particular, suggested reset VAT for domestic and inbound tour operators to synchronize this support measure with the hotel exemption. This measure is proposed to be issued “retroactively” – from January 1, 2023 to July 2027.

According to preliminary data from Rosstat, the number of tourist trips with hotel accommodation in 2022 increased by 8% compared to 2021 and amounted to about 62 million people, Reshetnikov said.

According to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), in 2022 Russia visited about 200,100 foreign tourists, which is 30.2% less than in 2021, when 288,300 trips were recorded.