Smolensk Was Included into Top 10 Tourist Destinations According to MAPS.MЕ

The data collected with MAPS.ME application on a regular basis, serve to generate the National Tourist Rating of Russia, which shows popularity of the Russian regions with foreign tourists. The key factor is the number of foreign users who download the maps of the Russian regions through MAPS.ME during the season. In spring 2019 Smolensk was ranked 8th among all the regions of Russia.

Foreign tourists are traditionally most attracted with Moscow and St. Petersburg (which are included into the Moscow and Leningrad Regions correspondingly), as well as with the Krasnodar Territory, the Republic of Adygeya and the Rostov Region.

This spring showed that the Sverdlovsk Region and the Republic of Tatarstan retained their positions, taking the 6th and the 7th rating positions, respectively. The Smolensk Region has become a bit more popular, as the region moved ahead from the 9th to the 8th line in the rating. The Voronezh Region and the Republic of Bashkortostan are at the bottom of Top 10 regions.

“After the FIFA World Cup tourists from abroad started showing strong interest in the cities, located not far from Moscow,” noted CEO of the Cluster Development Centre of the Smolensk Region Denis Alenin. “Worth noting is that our region has a cross-border location, marking a place where the destinies of people from Russia and Europe are closely intertwined. From year to year there grows the number of foreign tourists who are eager to see the historic battlefields for themselves. The Belarusians, Poles, Germans, Lithuanians and French people are frequent visitors of our region. We believe that the tourist flow will be given a significant rise with opening an international checkpoint on the border with the Republic of Belarus.”

According to MAPS.ME application, Top-20 Russian regions considered to be most attractive for the international visitors (as of spring 2019), include the following entities:

1. Moscow and Moscow Region
2. St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region
3. Krasnodar Territory
4. Republic of Adygeya
5. Rostov Region
6. Sverdlovsk Region
7. Republic of Tatarstan
8. Smolensk Region
9. Voronezh Region
10. Republic of Bashkortostan
11. Chelyabinsk Region
12. Stavropol Territory
13. Kaliningrad Region
14. Tula Region
15. Vladimir Region
16. Samara Region
17. Tver Region
18. Nizhny Novgorod Region
19. Pskov Region
20. Novosibirsk Region