More Russian tourists – not less
Norwegian tourism authority doubts figures from Moscow indicating that Norway is a looser in Russian tourists’ boom.
BarentsObserver reported yesterday on the official figures from Rosturizm, Russia’s federal agency for tourism, showing a 9 percent decline in Russian tourists to Norway in 2010.
Olga Philippenko is Director of Tourism at Innovation Norway’s Moscow office. She says to BarentsObserver that the numbers of Russian tourists visiting Norway increased in 2010.
- 82,000 Russians visited Norway last year, an 18 percent increase. 62,000 of the visitors were tourists, an 17 percent increase compared with 2009, says Olga Philippenko.
Innovation Norway is actively promoting Norway – the Land of fjords – as an attractive destination both for individual Russian travellers and for tour operators.
The statistics from Rosturizm BarentsObserver reported on said a total of 12,805 Russian tourists visited Norway last year, down 9 percent compared with 2009.
- I’m aware of the Russian statistics, says Philippenko. –The problem is that the Russian statistics don’t count the numbers of visitors coming in transit through Finland, Sweden or Denmark to Norway. They only count direct traffic from Russia to Norway, explains Olga Philippenko.
