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Russians prefer domestic tourism as national currency growing stronger

The tendency would remain in the coming year due to stabilized currency exchange rates

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. Russia’s tourism authority, Rosturism, expects declining outflow of tourists in the outgoing year, though bigger numbers of foreign tourists visiting Russia, Rosturism’s deputy head, Roman Skoryi, said in an interview with the Vesti FM radio on Friday.

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"Our forecast for 2016 is that the number of Russian tourists would be 6% fewer year-on-year, but the number of coming tourists would be higher," he said. "In other words, 19.5 million trips outside Russia and 25.7 million trips - into Russia."

The authority says the tendency would remain in the coming year due to stabilized currency exchange rates and to active promotion of Russian tourism.

"Especially active development is in Vladivostok, Sakhalin, Kamchatka - those are the directions attracting from the point of view of landscapes," he added.

Besides, the official expressed hope that in the coming year the domestic tourism would be growing. The expectation is based on the demand Russian tourists have been demonstrating for destinations inside the country.

The number of tourists, who preferred to visit places inside Russia, over the first 10 months grew by 18% year-on-year. This tendency continues for the third year already, deputy head of the Russian Union of Tourism Industry Yuri Barzykin said.

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