SHANGHAI, May 5. /TASS/. The traffic of Chinese tourists to St. Petersburg may grow to 500,000 in two - three coming years, adviser to the chairman of the Tourism Development Committee of the St. Petersburg Government Alexander Gorokhov told TASS.
"Let me say this is a cautious forecast and it is rather conservative. About two million Chinese tourists visited Russia before the [coronavirus] pandemic; one million among them visited St. Petersburg. We expect half a million tourists in St. Petersburg in about two - three years," Gorokhov said.
The forecast is cautious because anti-COVID restrictions left their mark, the adviser said. Small tourists groups largely visited St. Petersburg under the intergovernmental agreement providing for the visa-free travel of up to fourteen days.
"It is being suspended so far. The agreement is said to become effective in summer but we nevertheless believe the number of groups and the number of people in groups will be smaller than before the pandemic," Gorokhov noted.
The profile of tourists will change, the advisor said. "More individual tourists will go to us, more tourists having some niche interests; for example, medical tourism," Gorokhov noted.
The Committee is currently with a business mission in China, the official noted. "St. Petersburg is ready to receive tourists from the People’s Republic of China, in terms of infrastructure and considering that it is the largest tourist center in Russia and the tourist cultural capital. We are staging a real road show for such purposes," the adviser said. The business mission has already visited Beijing, is in Shanghai now and will then depart to Shenzhen, he noted.
The goal of the business mission is to restart the tourist traffic from China to St. Petersburg, Gorokhov said.