Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, have launched a year-long program on March 22, 2013 in Moscow. This aims to boost tourism and exchanges between the two countries.
The year 2012 was the ‘Year of Russian Tourism’ in China, which saw many Chinese visitors making their way to Russia. This number reached 343,000, which was a gain of 47 percent from 2011. On the other hand, the number of Russian tourists in China had gone down in 2012. This could be blamed on the rising prices in China and the floating exchange rate.
Chinese travel agencies are now trying their best to develop new destinations to attract Russian visitors. These destinations are different from traditional ones like Beijing and the resort island of Hainan. In the first eleven months of 2012, Hainan received 120,000 Russian visitors, which is slightly less than the same period in 2011.
Wang Taixiang, the Trip of Garden International Tour’s vice president said, “This year, we hope the Chinese tourism program in Russia could bring more Russian tourists to China and actual benefits to us”. This year more than 300 events have been launched to help people know about tourism resources in the neighboring countries and even Chinese companies are being welcomed to invest in Russia.
