RUSSIA, August 12 - Mikhail Mishustin: “In 2021, the domestic tourist flow grew by almost 90 percent to the pre-pandemic level of 2019 and amounted to 56.5 million people. This is 50 percent higher than in 2020. We expect the positive trend to continue. This is also true for the turnover of such an important economy sector, which is now one trillion roubles higher than two years ago. Employment in the industry has almost completely recovered: up to 2.3 million people. We expect employment growth to continue this year as well.”

Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:

Good afternoon, friends, colleagues.

Today we, together with experts and businesses, will discuss the development of a very important industry, the tourism industry. The President has talked many times about how important it is to create attractive routes, open new destinations that are easy to access and, of course, to have a good time there.

Last spring, we together with the entrepreneurs raised these issues when we visited Altai. It is a unique region with great potential. Impressive nature, and significant historical and cultural heritage, which I believe would be interesting at any age.

Two Russian regions – the Republic of Altai and the Altai Territory – have more visitors every year than people living there. Tourism has long become a backbone sector of the economy for these regions. However, high-quality infrastructure for recreation, unfortunately, is still lacking. This is typical of many other regions of our vast country.

Greater Altai illustrates all the difficulties that both travellers and the industry are facing today, as well as the tasks that need to be addressed in order to make travel across Russia competitive and more comfortable for our people. This work requires coordinated actions of ministries, departments, industry participants, and regions.

Before getting down to the discussion, I would like to say a few words about the general developments in the Russian tourism industry. Last year, it had one of the best results for the recovery rate of key indicators after the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2021, the domestic tourist flow grew by almost 90 percent to the pre-pandemic level of 2019 and amounted to 56.5 million people. This is 50 percent higher than in 2020. We expect the positive trend to continue.

This is also true for the turnover of such an important economy sector, which is now one trillion roubles higher than two years ago.

Employment in the industry has almost completely recovered: up to 2.3 million people. We expect employment growth to continue this year as well.

More to be posted soon...