Head of Rosturism, federal tourism agency of Russia; Alexander Radkov said that the cooperation between Russia and China in tourism has yielded fruitful results and expanded mutual understanding between the two peoples.
According to Radkov, the tourist flow from China has dropped 18% this year, while the number of tourists entering Russia under the visa-free regime has grown 41%. 309 thousand Chinese tourists have visited Russia during the last 9 months, 131 thousand of which traveled under the visa-free regime.
Alexander Radkov expressed the main reasons holding back Chinese tourists as follows: high transit price, underdeveloped travel infrastructure, discrepancy between the cost and quality of hotels and shortage of qualified interpreters
The agreement on the visa-free group travel between Russia and China was signed by the countries in 2000. It covers groups of 5 to 50 people.
