Diversification of the flow of tourists between Russia and Germany

Society is a set of different kinds of people’s occupations and by developing each of them we bring welfare to the whole population. Nowadays tourism industry is one of those rapidly developing sides. This kind of industry became more popular after the Winter Olympic Games in 2014. After that, more people started visiting our country. That’s why I picked this topic as my research goal to understand the changes of the tourism industry from 2014 to 2018 based on directions from Russia to Germany

Traveling to Germany was always relevant and the Olympic Games didn’t affect it. The demand increases every year. The principal of sales department Ilya Alexandrovski said that the Aeroflot air company developed its ridership to the cities of Germany in 2016. Since 2013 it has been increased by 26% and that’s just one air company. The evidences of the demand is provided by the consulate of Germany. Also there were about 260 000 visas accepted to russian citizens, and in 2017 the number of people who wanted to get a schengen visa for tourism increased by 16% in comparison with the previous year. [2]

Most of the population of the world prefer to be treated in Germany. There’s a certain category of people who can be treated good only in Germany, therefore they are ready to wait, save money and get all the necessary documents gathered to use the chance. [3]

Random travelers increase the percentage of flights from Russia to Germany more often than specialized tourism companies. So it means that people don’t actually like the ways tourism companies organize journeys, so they prefer to deal with that personally. Nevertheless the popularity of Germany is always relevant. According to the information of the federal agency of the Russian Federation there were 1297 trips to Germany from Russia in 2018,it had 68 more trips than in 2017(in Table 1)

Table 1.

Changes of the tourism trips from Russia to Germany and from Germany to Russia from 2014 to 2018. [1]

As we can see, the departure from Russia to Germany has decreased in the last 5 years, and the arrival in Russia from Germany has increased. For clarity, consider Picture 1. [Compiled by the author].

Picture 1. The tourism traffic’s dynamic

So, as a result the departure from Russia to Germany was reduced with 138 less trips in 2014, despite the fact that the comparison of the last 2 years shows that it was increased. The number of the german tourists taking trips to Russia has been slightly increased, taking into account that during the year there were also some downs.

The Russians don’t stop visiting the cities of Germany for the following reasons: [9]

1. Cultural heritage. Germany has a very rich history and many russians want to visit cities that are related to the Second World War
2. Shopping. Definitely the most popular kind of activity during a trip, especially among the youth. In every city there are malls and luxury boutiques that are almost always located on the central streets. The prices for clothes in Germany are lower than in Russia and if we aslo take into account that every nonresident of the EU gets taxes back because of the tax-free system, it makes the demand reasonable.
3. Accessibility. Germany attracts tourists with its low prices.

Germany is usually visited by the tourists from the central part of Russia (37%) 16% from the northwest and 13% the Volzhski region. 10% from Siberia, 9% from Ural, 6% from the south part of Russia and only 2% from the north part of Caucasus. [3]

Touristic zones in Germany are separated into federal territories. The russians usually visit Bavaria, Berlin or North Rhine-Westphalia (Table 2)

Table 2.

Most visited cities in Germany

As we can see the last 2 cities in the top 10 cities are Rhineland-Palatinate and  Brandenburg. Russia is one the strongest tax-free markets for Germany. The most popular market town for russians in 2015 was Munich, Berlin and Düsseldorf are the next ones. As to types of rest, 20% of russians respondents prefer to rest on the beach, in countrysides or in the mountains, 62 % prefer tours around cities and 3% find sport trips. Ages of the russian tourists visiting Germany are pretty different: 44% is from 15 to 34 years old, 24% is from 35 to 54 years old and 37% are older than 55. The average age of tourists is 40,2 years old. In the ratio of men and women, travelers are divided by 47% and 53% respectively.

As to Russia, 4,2 million foreign tourists visited our country in 2018 against 3,8 million in 2017 in Germany. In this list Germany is ranked second which means 451,4 tourists came to Russia from Germany (+10,5%) China is ranked first (1,26 million tourists) (+14,5) to the result of 2017 and the third place was taken by South Korea -342,3 (+45) [4]

People usually visit federal cities such as Moscow, Saint-Petersburg. These cities attract people with their architecture and cultural heritage such as The Tretyakov State Gallery, Hermitage and many other places. Some of the tourists love the beauty of nature , Lake Baikal is a good example. The standard way to rest is exploring the following streets: Arbat, the Kremlin, Nevskiy Avenue, Petergof and others. However these cities can get tourists bored and the only way to solve this problem is to start developing other cities , so the foreign tourists can travel to more cities of our country. Nowadays because of the unstable economical and political situations, trips to Germany from Russia and vice versa are being reduced. [4]

By developing Public-Private Partnerships in Russia, we will be able to attract investment for tourism industry and improve the infrastructure of the cities and other things. If the economical situation recovers and the ruble starts increasing in years to come, trips to foreign countries will be also recovered.