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Britain one of Russia's top ten tourist ‘suppliers’ - deputy culture minister

LONDON, January 21, /ITAR-TASS/. Britain is one of the countries whose tourists actively travel to Russia, a deputy Russian culture minister said Tuesday.

“The United Kingdom is in the top ten countries that form the key tourist flows to Russia,” Alla Manilova told an Itar-Tass correspondent in London.

“This does not mean that we are satisfied with the volume of these flows,” Manilova said. “We are absolutely convinced, being guided by understanding of the market and expert assessments, that this potential is much higher.”

She specified that business tourists constitute the bulk of tourist flows. “When we speak about this type of tourism, we realize that the only real direction for this sector is Moscow,” the official said.

“When we speak about cultural and educational tourism, we realize that St. Petersburg holds the leadership in that sphere,” she said.

Manilova said British residents should “learn how rich and diversified the Russian culture is.”

The Russian deputy culture minister, jointly with other representatives of the travel industry, cultural and academic community, took part in a cultural and tourism forum held today in London and timed to the UK-Russia Year of Culture 2014 that is to officially kick off in the British capital on February 24.

Today’s forum aims to strengthen bilateral cooperation and promote direct contacts between the two countries’ nongovernmental tourism organizations.

According to the Russian Culture Ministry, some 110,000 British nationals visited Russia over six months in 2013, which was 10 percent more than in the same period in 2012.

Terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall

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