Research by the Public Opinion Foundation. We asked what experts in the tourism industry think about this.
The Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) conducted a survey on the preferences of Russians in relation to domestic tourism. According to the data received, a third of our compatriots have never gone on vacation outside their region.
On the one hand, these statistics indicate the low transport mobility of Russians. On the other hand, it shows that domestic tourism has room to develop.
RUSSIAN REGIONS NEED TO INTEREST THE NEIGHBORS
It is the neighboring territories and regions that could become points of attraction for those tourists who are not used to travelers and whose budget is limited, says ATOR Vice President, General Director of the Dolphin tour operator Sergey Romashkin.
“Beginning tourists first of all master their region, then go to neighboring ones. For example, from media reports, a picture is formed that residents of the capitals go to Altai and Siberia for a vacation. In fact, this is not entirely wrong. Up to 90% of tourists in Altai are residents of neighboring regions,” the expert explains.
This state of affairs is not least due to the cost of recreation.
“If a trip to Siberia or Sochi from the capital with the whole family costs 100 thousand or more rubles, then you can get to Altai or Baikal from, conditionally, Novosibirsk, by your own car and it will be much cheaper. And it will be very expensive for a resident of Kaliningrad to get to Vladivostok, ”explains Sergey Romashkin.
According to FOM statistics, tourists really choose either the most popular or closer to them vacation spots (which in our country is a relative concept and in many ways, the “proximity” of the region is not about geography, but about the presence of transport links).
For example, the inhabitants of the Caucasus are not very eager to go to Baikal or Kamchatka, in comparison with others. And there are almost no people willing to travel from the Far East and Siberia to Karelia. Uralians are less interested in the Golden Ring, and tourists from the Volga cities are not going to Kaliningrad.
Representatives of the tourism industry believe that almost any place in Russia can be a point of interest. It's just that at the moment there are regions whose tourism potential has not yet been discovered.
Such regions need to strengthen the promotion of their destinations, or create more quality travel infrastructure. Tour operators are sure that the regions that are interested in increasing the tourist flow will be able to get more tourists if they carry out appropriate work.
In addition, experts recall the importance of transport links: direct tourist charter and skillful marketing make the once “distant and alien » the region is close, understandable and interesting.
WHERE THE RUSSIANS WANT AND WHERE THE RUSSIANS REALLY GO
But the expressed desire to visit any region of Russia does not mean that the tourist will go there. Having a limited budget, which is not enough to achieve his main tourist goal, he, with a certain degree of probability, between going either “anywhere” or “to the neighboring region”, and not where he “dreams” (and what he told sociologists in the survey).
FOM data indirectly confirm that the desires and possibilities of Russians in terms of traveling around the country actually differ.
So, for example, in the ranking of places where Russians actually went on vacation, Sochi and other resorts of the Kuban are in first place (35% of respondents). The second place is shared by Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Crimea (19% each), the cities of the Volga region (Nizhny Novgorod, Cheboksary, Kazan, Samara, Saratov, Volgograd, Astrakhan) are in the third place (14%). The fourth place (10% each) is occupied by the cities of the Golden Ring and the resorts of the North Caucasus.
But the most theoretically desirable for Russian tourists are Baikal (33% of respondents would like to go there), Crimea (another 28% want to go there), St. Petersburg, where 27% of respondents want to go. Sochi and other resorts of the Krasnodar Territory are only in fourth place (25%). Approximately the same number – 24% – said they would like to visit Altai. 13%-18% of respondents each dream of a vacation in Karelia, the North Caucasus, or trips along the Golden Ring and Moscow.
As you can see, neither Baikal, nor Altai, nor Karelia were included in the “real” rating, and interest in the two capitals and Crimea is significantly higher than in the “real trips” rating.
INTEREST IN DOMESTIC TOURISM IS DECREASING< /h2>
At the same time, judging by the results obtained by the FOM, the interest of respondents in Russian regions, alas, is declining in principle. For example, last year 42% of participants in a similar survey wanted to go to Lake Baikal, 37% to Crimea, and 32% to St. Petersburg.
At least the first and third cases are clearly out of the possible statistical error of 3.6%: that is, interest in these destinations is decreasing: either they have already gone and don’t want to anymore, or they are disappointed in the very idea.
Similar figures in all other areas – the result of this year is several percentage points lower than the previous one. But something else is also worrying. Significantly – from 7% to 12% – increased the number of respondents who said that they were not interested in traveling in Russia at all.
Also, from the published data, we can conclude that travelers in general have become a little less emotional about their trips – the percentage of those who gave both positive and negative ratings has, in principle, decreased compared to 2021 and 2020.
NOT SENTENCE, BUT A REASON TO WORK
Thus, according to the FOM data and the opinion of tourism market experts, with certain efforts, Russian regions could involve in tourism even that third of Russians who never go anywhere.
But, judging by the dynamics, all these regions need to be actively engaged right now, because the general interest in traveling within the country, at least according to the FOM, is not growing.
Growth The same number of actually made trips around the country fell on 2020-2021, when trips abroad were problematic due to covid. Therefore, it is clearly premature to draw conclusions from the FOM figures that the Russians “fell in love” with trips around their country. In order to really attract tourists, reveal their potential, and make guests return, the Russian regions still need to try.
Ekaterina Tropova