Seeking the right way

The Russian tourism industry showed good results in 2024. According to official statistics, the tourist flow has grown, new tourism destinations are becoming popular with travelers. However, there are also problems. EcoTourism EXPERT talked to Sergey Pozdnyakov, a tourism expert, head of Alliance Press-Expert about the results of the Russian tourism business in 2024 and about the expectations for summer season 2025.

- How can you characterize the results of 2024 shown by the tourism industry? Are they encouraging, uncertain, or ambiguous?

- First of all, they are ambiguous. Of course, there are certain positive results connected with increased traveling of people within Russia to explore their own country because foreign countries are not ‘widely open’ for tourists. But this has its pros and cons.

- What are the pros and cons, can you give examples?

- The growing popularity of traveling around the country has resulted in increased prices for tourism services in Russia. At the same time, the quality of tourism services does not always improve. In addition, the price of additional services is sharply increasing at the same time.

It can look very good for accounting as the figures show very good positive dynamics. But this is bad because quite recently, we had something to compare domestic tourism with when people could travel abroad to enjoy their vacations for relatively little money. And we hoped that when the prices for traveling within Russia were rising, the quality of travel services would also grow and be of the same level as abroad.

- Has the quality of travel services improved?

- It has not improved everywhere and always. When I hear that people make a lot of trips and a lot of people want to travel in the future, I always object by saying that now people are spending mainly the money on their trips saved or act according to the principle “this is the last time we live, so we need to travel.” This may soon end, as prices for traveling are rising, and wages are not increased at the same pace.

- What can summer 2025 bring to the Russian tourism industry?

- The situation is ambiguous. We see that the prices have risen in glamping sites that can now be called literally ‘golden houses’, so we can expect a rise in prices for accommodation at large or small hotels, without any doubt.

Therefore, I think that tourists will increasingly pay attention to staying in apartments due to the rise in prices for standard accommodation facilities. At the same time, hoteliers tell me that they also have difficulties in doing their business.

- What are the difficulties?

- Firstly, the difficulties in accounting, they often have to submit a lot of documents, a lot of time is spent to make and check these documents instead of doing real business. Their profitability is also declining because, for example, the prices for utilities are rising, but the cost of hotel rooms cannot be increased at the same rate because people can stop staying at hotels.

- So, we expect prices to rise in summer 2025 and the number of those who can afford the new prices to decline?

- It is clear that people will not stop traveling altogether. Prices are rising in St. Petersburg, for example, but people will not stop traveling to this city since it is the only major tourism destination with a magnificent history. As for other places, there may be problems, a lull in the tourist flow may set in. I recently drove through Petrozavodsk located on the shore of Lake Onega in Karelia and other cities in that area, and saw a 25 percent increase in prices for hotel rooms. And this, I think, will make people travel for shorter periods, for example, not for 4-5 days but for one or two days only.

- Does the tourism industry expect anything else in 2025 besides rising prices?

- I think that taking part in the ‘Russia’ exhibition by many regions may play a role. On the one hand, the expositions attracted attention to the regions, but on the other hand, it will be very difficult to ensure the potential growth of tourist flow.

Of course, many regions have something to show to tourists. But there is probably almost no money left to promote tourism. It is also difficult to find people, especially in the bodies of regional government, who would be able to promote the tourism potential of their regions. And the shortage of such people is both in the bodies of regional government and in the tourism industry on the whole.

- What good things can be expected in 2025? Are there any positive moments?

- Of course, there are! For example, a highway is under construction, and I hope that someday, a good highway to Vladivostok will be definitely build. The plans are to extend it to Yekaterinburg next year. What else? There are national parks and nature reserves as well that are starting to be more involved in ecotourism, giving more freedom in organizing traveling and providing accommodation in their regions, and some tourism activities like making eco-trails, for example, that do no harm to nature.

I would like to mention the growing attention to the renovation and restoration of various objects. In many cities, the façades of the buildings are changing for the better, both the façades of the buildings that are cultural heritage and those that are, one might say, just ordinary old buildings.

- To sum up, does the development of the tourism industry in our country largely depends on local officials in a tourism sector? Does it mean that when they are ‘immersed in the topic of tourism’, there will be the development of the tourism industry?

- Right, I agree. But I’d like to repeat that accounting must be improved to promote the tourism development and not just load more work on workers to help them keep their jobs. This is a major task for the nearest future!