Gui Congyou mentioned the recent steps in this direction made by the two countries, including the lifting of visa requirements for groups of five tourists and more.
“We are going to continue easing the bilateral visa regime for tourists all the way to abolishing visas altogether,” he said, adding that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Russia in the past two years had gone up by twice, exceeding 1.1 million a year.
“Almost half a million visited St. Petersburg last year alone and if we bring this annual figure to five million this would bring a lot of money to the Russian budget. With each Chinese tourist coming to Russia spending around $2,000, this would amount to nearly $10 billion a year,” the diplomat said.
Gui Congyou mentioned the recent drop in the number of Russian tourists coming to China caused by economic problems, but hoped that Russia would eventually leave its temporary economic woes behind and the number of Russian tourists traveling to the People’s Republic would go up again.
