MOSCOW, December 30. /ITAR-TASS/. Over two million of foreign tourists visit Russian in 2013 while the number of Russian tourists, who travel round the country, increases, head of the Federal Tourism Agency (Rostourism) Alexander Radkov said.

The number of Russian tourists travelling abroad increases by 20% and they reached about 15 million people in 2013, Radkov said.

“In 2013, there were many interesting projects to develop the internal tourist market: many hotels were built and new brands were begun working.” “As for international tourism, the Association of Tour Operators in Outbound Tourism was set up and started functioning to provide immediate aid to tourists, who faced problems abroad due to tour operators’ financial problems. Now the compensation fund has over 200 million rubles and the Association includes about 2,000 Russian tour operators,” the Rostourism head said.

The successful Year of Chinese Tourism in Russia was one of the key events in 2013, he said, adding “Chinese tourists, including independent ones, visited Russia oftener.”

Commenting on the plans of Rostourism, Radkov said, “The Bilateral Year of Tourism (Russia-Italy) will be one of the priority events in 2014. Many tourist exhibitions, conferences, seminars and news tours will be held.”

“We’re also discussing measures to hold the Bilateral Year of Tourism (Russia-Turkey),” he said.

“Among inbound tourism, I can note the Olympic Games in Sochi that will give us the good flow of tourists,” Radkov said.

For her part, executive director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia Maya Lomidze said, “The expiring year was marked by different events: the year 2013 reminded of the pre-crisis year 2008 when tourists spent money carefully and chose budget tours.