Medvedev: Russia has to improve internal tourism

SOCHI, Jan 11 (PRIME) – Russia’s potential to develop its internal tourism is great and it has to develop an import substitution plan for the sector, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting on the tourism sector’s development on January 5.

The Culture Ministry’s estimate of domestic tourist flow for 2015 stands at 50 million people, while a record of more than 20 million foreign tourists visited Russia last year. “The potential for development of our country’s internal tourism is huge. We have to use every existing possibility (to develop it),” Medvedev said.

He offered to develop state support for tour operators that develop internal tourism routes and new types of tourism in the country. He also suggested state support for air carriers that fly domestic tourism routes, as their leasing payments and costs of banking credits are still growing.

Medvedev said that 4 billion rubles were spent under a federal target program for development of internal tourism in 2015, and it attracted about 12 billion rubles of non-budgetary investments to the sector.

But Oleg Safonov, the Federal Tourism Agency’s head, said that Russian regions need 35 billion rubles more to upgrade their infrastructure to develop internal tourism.

(72.9299 rubles – U.S. $1)

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