The flow of foreigners in Russia increased by 8% in the first half of the year

The statistics published on the site of Federal Tourism Agency on Thursday, says that the inbound tourism in Russia has increased by 8.1% in the first half of the year 2015, compared with the same period of the last year.

The number of people, who named tourism as the purpose of visit, increased by 4.6%. The number of business trips grew by 33.2%. All in all, 16.1 million trips to Russia have been made. For comparison, 14.9 million of people traveled to Russia last year.

The highest number of visits to Russia is made by the neighboring countries: Poland (864.6 thousand) and Finland (716 thousand). In the first case, the total number of tourist flow has decreased by 6.4%, and the number of Finnish tourists increased by 2.5%. Incidentally only 5.5 thousand Poland citizens named touristic purposes of visiting Russia, and that's 40% less than the year before. 7.5 thousand citizens of Finland came for touristic purposes, which is 17% less than in the first half of 2014.

China has also showed the growth of tourist flow in the first half of the year. The total flow from this country increased by 8.9% - from 502.6 to 547.3 thousand. The number of Chinese visiting Russia with touristic purposes grew by 51.6%. The last year, following the results of the last six months, 134.8 thousand of Chinese tourists visited Russia. In 2015 this number increased and now numbers 204.5 thousand.

South Korean citizens are able to visit Russia on visa-free conditions and tourist flow from South Korea increased by 27.3%. A year earlier, 35.1 thousand Koreans visited Russian Federation. The number of tourists from Korea for six months of this year is about 44.7 thousand. Incidentally the total number of Korean visits decreased from 63.5 to 71.7 thousand.

The total number of visits from Israel increased by 12.6% in this half-year and now is about 66.6 thousand. The number of visits for touristic purposes has also increased by 23.2% and now amounts up to 50.5 thousand.

Also the tourist flow from Egypt, Thailand, and United Arab Emirates increased.

Despite the ruble low rate, the number of tourists from European countries and the countries of North America has declined. In the first half of the last year German citizens visited Russia 273 thousand times, including 133 thousand visits with touristic purposes. This year the total number of visits is 242 thousand, including 128.6 thousand with touristic purposes. The number of visits from the UK decreased by 21.3% and now is 85.8 thousand, including 48.2 thousand tourist visits. Last year 60.5 thousand British tourists visited Russia. At the same time Spain has shown a slight increase: total flow of its citizens increased by 0.1% and now is about 40.5 thousand people; tourist flow increased by 21.5% and now amounts about 25.4 thousand.

Tourist flow from the United States decreased by 8.2% in the first half of the year and now amounts 63.7 thousand. The total flow of visits also decreased to 102.7 thousand or 14.8%