Over the past two years, the tourist flow to Russia from African countries has increased more than 1.5 times, said Yulia Maksutova, deputy head of the Center for Strategic Research (CSR).
For many African states, tourism is a rapidly growing sector of the economy. There is a demand among African tourists to travel to Russia, especially in light of active business and educational exchanges, Maksutova noted in a conversation with Izvestia.
She added that Africa is a promising yet untapped tourist market. There are more than 50 countries on the mainland, which are interesting in their own way. Citizens of Botswana, Cape Verde, Mauritius, Namibia, Tunisia, South Africa and Seychelles already have visa-free entry to the Russian Federation. The geography of air communication is expanding.
The expert emphasized that for the last two years the tourist flow from Africa has increased by almost 60%, but still remains modest - a total of about 37 thousand trips per year. Africans when choosing travel destinations are often limited to neighboring countries. They often come to Russia for educational and medical tourism.
Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia are popular with Russians.
Africa has a very rich gastronomic culture, but Russian cuisine restaurants are not represented, in this regard, the gastronomic potential of the Russian Federation can play an important role in tourist exchanges, Maksutova said.
The CSR together with the Ministry of Economic Development promotes Russian tourist potential in friendly countries and works on the formation of sustainable tourist flows.
Currently, the share of African tourists in the inbound tourist flow to Russia is less than 1%. The creation of a Russian-African working group on tourism in the CSR can be a good help to improve mutual tourist flows, the expert concluded.
Earlier it was reported that Russians are rushing to Japan to see the cherry blossoms.