Portrait of tourists - 2022

More and more tourists come to St. Petersburg, despite the beginning of a full -scale war in Ukraine and the economic crisis. In 2022, their total amount became maximum since the beginning of the pandemic.

At the same time, the average portrait of a tourist has changed in St. Petersburg. Now foreigners are almost not going to the city (except for the residents of the near abroad), and the flow of Russians set a record over the past five years.

“Paper” investigated official data on tourism in St. Petersburg and tells how five years of the city’s guests have changed, how many foreigners come here after the start of the war and what is now the main goal of the tourist.

After the invasion of Ukraine, there were no less tourists in St. Petersburg. But the number of foreigners has sharply reduced

The total number of tourists in St. Petersburg was reduced only during the Pandemia of Coronavirus in 2020, when strict restrictive measures operated in the city and the boundaries were closed. Then, according to the Tourism Development Committee, the tourist flow fell by 72 % compared to the previous year.

Already in 2021, the number of tourists increased by 109 %-Petersburg was visited by 6 million people. In 2022, growth continued, despite the economic and political crisis: 8 million tourists have already arrived in the city. The indicator almost returned to the underly values, follows from the data of the Tourism Development Committee.

The main difference between 2022 and the previous ones is a decrease in the number of foreigners among the total number of arrivals. Over five years among St. Petersburg tourists, the share of Russians increased from 55.6 % to 92 %. Although even during the pandemic, foreigners, according to Smolny, accounted for about 20 % of the city’s guests.

Tourists from other regions of Russia became the main guests of hotels and hotels in St. Petersburg, the Committee on Tourism Development notes . According to Smolny, last year, seven new hotels for 1568 rooms were opened in the city. In total, the number of rooms in the city increased by 10 % - to 51.3 thousand numbers, although it also did not reach the indicators before the beginning of the Pandemia of the coronavirus.

Petersburg leads the number of hotels booking among Russian cities, confirm in the Tutu.ru travel planning service. Its press service told Paper that 21 % of the site users were looking for housing in St. Petersburg, and 19 % in Moscow.

Among the Russians, women who want to visit museums and theaters come to Petersburg more often in St. Petersburg

The Petersburg Tourism Development Committee shared detailed data on the portrait of the city guests in only 2022 . There is no detailed information about who came to the city in previous years in the public domain.

In 2022, 7.74 million Russians were visited by Petersburg, the paper was told in the City Tourism Development Committee. There were more women among them - their number is 9 % higher than the number of men, the committee notes. Usually these are young women from 18 to 34 years old, but also a significant part of tourists from 34 to 44 years old.

During the year of St. Petersburg, according to the city administration, the share of young-Russian tourists also increased. The authorities associate this with the fact that tourists in the city began to come more often to attend events, including concerts.

Was there many concerts in St. Petersburg in 2022? ↓

In 2022, many concerts were canceled in St. Petersburg, including performances of performers with an anti -war position. The number of performances of foreign performers also fell a lot - they amounted to only 1 % of the events.

The Tourism Development Committee of St. Petersburg includes city public holidays in the list of events and concerts. "Paper" wrote that against the backdrop of the war, 230 events took place in the city, on which more than 575.8 million rubles spent.

Among these events are “Scarlet Sails”, the Navy Day, the birthday of Peter I, Victory Day, Russia Day and others.

More than half of the-Russian tourists are already married and come to St. Petersburg with their family-with or without children, follows from the calculations of the Tourism Committee.

Most often, residents of Moscow come to St. Petersburg (23.5 %), then Volga (15 %), the central (14 %) and north-west (12 %) federal districts, notes the Tourism Development Committee.

Russian tourists on average for a trip for three to four days in St. Petersburg spend 39.7 thousand rubles each, said in Smolny. At the same time, the income of their families on average does not exceed 40 thousand rubles per person.

Tourists from the "distant countries" come to Petersburg less and less. And more and more often - from neighboring abroad to visit the family

From 2018 to 2020 in St. Petersburg, most foreign tourists were citizens of “distant countries” (the authorities do not call specific countries, but probably we are talking about states outside the CIS and the territory of the former USSR), follows from the data of the tourism development committee.

In 2021, they were first ahead of the guests from the neighboring abroad (CIS, Baltic countries, Georgia and Ukraine). They began to come to St. Petersburg 127 % more often than a year earlier. At the same time, the number of tourists from “distant countries” decreased by 45 %.

In 2022, 420 thousand citizens of the neighboring foreign countries arrived in St. Petersburg - 16 % more than a year earlier, but even less than the Pandemia of Coronavirus. 220 thousand people arrived from the “distant countries” to the city - 10 thousand less than in the previous year. They were able to get to St. Petersburg, despite the ban on flights to Russia from the European Union and a ban on entry into the Russian Federation through ground boundaries for tourists from Europe.

However, in 2023, the number of tourists from “distant countries” may increase due to the resuming of flights between St. Petersburg and Beijing. The first planes will land on February 19, write in Pulkovo. Over the year, 300 thousand people can visit the city, says Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of the Infoline Analytics analytical agency.

According to Smolny, most tourists from the near abroad visited relatives in St. Petersburg, and a third visited museums, theaters and concerts. Among them, most of them are people with higher (52 %) and secondary special education (32 %), the administration of St. Petersburg notes.

The Tourism Development Committee notes that still 86 % of St. Petersburg’s guests are planning travel on their own, using ticket reservation services and housing. At the same time, the authorities noticed a new trend: in 2022, the number of trips with travel agencies, as well as corporate rounds organized by employers, increased.

The contribution of all tourists to the city’s economy in 2022 amounted to 366 billion rubles-this is 57 % more than in 2021. The city’s guests spent almost as much as in 2019. Then they left 376.8 billion rubles in St. Petersburg, reported to Smolny. The authorities explain an increase in an increase in the number of tourists of the city and increasing the average check for all products and services.

In the photo: a foreign tourist and an employee of a tourist company of river excursions in St. Petersburg, May 21, 2022. Photo: Alexander Koryakov / "Kommersant"

What else to read:

• Against the backdrop of the war in St. Petersburg, the holidays are massively celebrated - 230 events have passed in six months. How much does it cost and what does the money go for?
• Since the beginning of the year, Petersburg has visited more than 7 million tourists-more than for the entire 2021st.