Most frequent visits to Russia are made by citizens from Finland, Poland and China but the bulk of the revenues is brought by tourists from Japan, USA and eight European countries. 24 million arrivals were registered last year.
      
      These 24 million arrivals include not only tours but actually any border crossing, like sailors going down on the land. The figure is just 3% of the world’s total, running into 703 million visits, said Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, head of the RF Federal Service for Tourism, who arrived in Japan for an international tourist conference.
      
      Chinese, Polish and Finnish people are ahead in number, but are generally considered the low revenue group for the tourism industry. Many come for just one day, and you cannot really earn much.
      
      In fact, the real donors for Russian tourism are Japanese, American, Austrian, British, Germans, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, French and Swiss citizens. The average stay lasts for about 6 ½ days and their overall expenses covering hotels, excursions and transportation are equal to $1,500.
      
      Russian people prefer Finland, Poland and China, paying in kind, but the classic holiday-making leader is Turkey, followed by Egypt. There’s a tug of war going on for the third place, the head of the tourism service was quoted as saying.
      
      SOURCE: ITAR-TASS