MOLDOVA INCLUDED IN TOP 30 MOST POPULAR TOURIST DIRECTIONS FOR RUSSIANS

Moldova closes the top 30 most popular foreign tourist trips from Russia in 2017.

According to the TurStart analytical agency (Russia), the number of journeys from Russia to Moldova grew 25% over the last year and exceeded 249 thousand. The same rate of growth was registered in the field of tourist trips from Russia – to 39.6 million.

The most popular foreign countries for Russians is Turkey (4.5 million tourist trips), Abkhazia (4.3 million), Finland (3.3 million), Kazakhstan (3 million), Ukraine (2.3 million), China (2 million), Estonia (1.7 million), Poland (1.2 million), Germany (1.2 million) and Thailand (1.1 million).

The data, presented by the Moldovan National Bureau of Statistics differ much from the Russian data. According to the NBS, in 2017 Moldova was visited by less than 17.5 thousand foreigners by means of tourist agencies and operators, 9.6% of which are Russian citizens (1.6 thousand). However, these data do not take into account the Transnistria and the Bender town. Besides, many Moldovan citizens, especially from the Transnistrian region have several citizenships and are entering/leaving Moldova usually on the basis of Moldovan citizenship to avoid additional problems, while to Russia and Transnistria they travel on the basis of the Russian citizenship.

As for the tourism to Russia, Moldova even entered the top ten. It ranked the 9th with 519 thousand trips (+31%). The rating is topped by Ukraine (8.7 million trips), Kazakhstan (3.5 million), China (1.5 million).