Module 5 - Russian Socio-cultural Information

Current Picture of Russian Visitors in the European Scene General Facts about Russia Relevant Aspects of the Profile of Russian Guests Russian mentality Language Spread of people from Russian ethnic origin abroad Religion Social status Habits Tipping Body language Russian Outbound Market vs. Others Conclusion References Russian Key words Russian Phrases
Back

In the background of many expressed concerns about Europian tourism seriously suffering due to loosing Russian tourists (O’Regan 2022) over EU visa restrictions and issues with Russians being able to access their money while overseas, new destinations became the focus of Russian travellers’ attention and many of them – in the countries of partners of InterCultural Hotel project.

According to a recent study (RB 2022), at the top of the list is Greece and specifically the city of Thessaloniki to which the demand for flights in 2022 grew by 793% compared to the previous year. Amongst the top 5 most popular destinatons are also Larnaca, Cyprus – increase by 387%, and Athens, Greece (or onward flights from there to Greek islands destinations) – increase by 360%. Other cities in the countries of project partners that significantly grew in popularity among Russian travellers are Warsaw, Poland (+155%), and Sofia, Bulgaria (+152%). Another source adds Italy to this list (DW 2022). According to information from the Bulgarian Ministry of Tourism, in 2022 the number of tourists from Russia increased fourfold in comparison to the winter and spring of 2021 (Watson 2022). All in all, studies confirm that “A million Russian tourists went on holiday in the EU this year” (Leadbeater 2022).

In the context of fewer, compared to previous years, overall figures of Russian tourists coming to Europe and the increasing competiton amongst accommodation places, it is essensial that their staff is well prepared to meet the needs of the tourists coming from Russian-speaking cultural background. And the more prepared, the better. This would not only guarantee that a certain establishment stands out, but would make its guests want to come to the same place again or recommend it to their networks. As studies have shown, “for Russians, recommendations from friends and relatives is extremely important” (HotellerieSuisse 2019: 19), and figures have confirmed that in all of the cases recommendation is taken into consideration when choosing a place (IndexBox Marketing 2014: 12).