Leading source markets for travel to Russia 2020-2022, by arrivals

In 2022, the country that visited Russia the most was Ukraine. Over 2.2 million trips were made to Russia from that country, marking a decrease compared to the previous year. A significant increase was recorded in tourists from Kazakhstan, from 565 thousand trips in 2021 to 1.6 million in 2022. China used to be one of the leading inbound travel origins in Russia prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but not in 2021 and 2022.

Russian inbound tourism overview

Approximately 8.6 million international tourists visited Russia in 2020, marking a sharp decline from the previous year, when it reached almost 25 million. Even though the tourist count was forecast to gradually increase in the following five years, according to the forecast, it was not going to reach the pre-pandemic level in that period. Moreover, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and border closures, the Russian inbound tourism has experienced a drastic decrease in expenditure. In 2020, foreign travelers were projected to spend a total of 6.76 million U.S. dollars in Russia, which was approximately 2.7 times lower than in the previous year.

Tourism in Moscow

In 2020, only 800 thousand international tourists visited Moscow, the capital of Russia. The foreign tourist count experienced a drastic decline by five million compared to the previous year as a result of travel restrictions related to COVID-19. The number of domestic visitors was significantly higher, at 12.8 million, even though it also decreased by 6.5 million from 2019.