MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. The inbound tourist flow to Russia may reach 15 million people a year by 2030, which is 1.5 times higher than in 2019. Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov announced this, lecturing at the site of the All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade.

"We have a rather modest entry flow. It has decreased significantly. It was 10 million in 2019, last year it was about 3 million, but we set the goal of bringing it back to 15 million by 2030," he said.

The minister recalled that since August 1 of this year, e-visas have been launched in Russia, and a group visa-free travel regime with China and Iran has begun to operate. There are plans to launch a group visa-free travel regime with India.

"We have identified 17 priority countries we are developing tourism exchanges with, where we are interested in inbound tourism. The population of these countries is approximately 3-4 billion people, 340 million people travel regularly, that is, this is a gigantic market," he said.