Due to the data provided by the Ministry of Statistics
and Analysis of the
Republic of
Belarus, 13,944 tourists visited
Belarus in organized
groups in January – March 2008, which constituted over three thousand tourists
fewer compared with the previous year. The majority of tourists come to
Belarus from
Russia – 7,708 persons. Overall,
there were 8,222 visitors from the CIS countries and 5,722 visitors from other
foreign countries.
Besides Russians, the most frequent visitors to
Belarus within organized groups are coming from
Turkey (1,628 persons),
Italy (591 persons), the
United Kingdom (482 persons),
Germany (429 persons) and
Ukraine (381
persons). Regarding recent trends, in comparison with the analogous period of
2007, the Ministry of Statistics notes the increasing number of tourists from
Croatia (by 2.4 times),
Switzerland (by 3.9 times),
India (by 2 times) and
Turkey (by 1.9
times). At the same time substantively decreased the flow of tourists from countries
such as
Estonia (by 7.4
times),
Lithuania (by 6 times),
Germany (by 6 times) and
Israel (by 5.6
times). The flow of tourists from the
USA decreased by 2 times.
Therefore the development of entry tourism in
Belarus is
still a problem of current importance, given that the modest flow of tourists
is decreasing…
With regard to the exit tourism, the figures are as
follows: around 30 thousand tourists were leaving
Belarus to go abroad in the first
three months of 2008, including 28,385 organised tourists. Fewer people were
leaving the country this year compared with the period January – March 2007,
when 72 thousand tourists went abroad (including 56.7 thousand of organized tourists).
At the same time, while Russians are the most frequent visitors to
Belarus, Belarusians prefer other foreign
countries: 2,779 tourists went to
Russia
(18.5 thousand in January – March last year), while 9,768 Belarusians went to
Egypt (twice as
much as in January – March 2007).
Significantly increased the flow of tourists from
Belarus to
Bulgaria
(from 109 persons in the first quarter of 2007 to 760 persons in the first
quarter of 2008),
Israel
(from 60 to 194) and
India
(from 96 to 182). At the same time the ‘demand’ dropped for
Lithuania (from 5,641 to 796 persons),
Poland (from 9142 to 864 persons) and
Czech Republic
(from 4,422 to 2,242 persons).
Source
