Although Russia's growth rate has slowed in the last year, this does not appear to have unduly affected the growth in the outbound tourist numbers, which have increased overall by 15% during the first quarter of this year and by 19% if we consider only leisure tourist figures. Moreover the UNWTO announced the Russians are the highest spenders in Europe and the 5th largest spenders in the world.

Russians neighbours continue to grow dynamically, and at a faster rate than Russia, due to the fact that they are less developed. In order to help you better target those fast growing, high spend markets, TMI will be organizing again the B2B Luxury & MICE Workshops in Almaty and Baku in 8-10 April, 2013. Interested international participants should book their place as soon as possible as subscription to the B2B Luxury & MICE workshops will close early this year, due to the high number of repeat participants and the limited no. of places.

See the website for further information: www.b2btravelworkshop.com

As of 2013, Russia has 14 cities with population of one million population or above. They are considered to be the cities with the most potential for foreign travel, as they have higher administrative budgets, and are generally considered to more attractive for the investors. Most of them have international airports, which means they have charter flights to key holiday destinations and they have the fastest rate of growth for percentage increase in travelers abroad. However, due to the centralized travel industry distribution system which is dominated by Moscow tour operators, travel agents in these cities mainly sell Moscow tour operator products.

1. Moscow – 11.5 million
2. St Petersburg – nearly 5 million
3. Novosibirsk – 1.5
4. Ekaterinburg – 1.3
5. Nizhny Novgorod – 1.2
6. Samara – 1.1.
7. Omsk – 1.1
8. Kazan – 1.1.
9. Cheliabynsk – 1.1.
10. Rostov-on-Don – 1
11. Ufa – 1
12. Volgograd – 1
13. Perm – 1
14. Voronezh  - 1

However, apart from cities with populations of 1 million inhabitants or more, there are also smaller cities which are substantially wealthier than even these million population cities, such as Surgut, Khanty-Mansiysk or Tyumen, which gain their wealth from the oil industry. kisochkispb.com malishkispb.com

Best regards,