President Macron from France was a guest during this years’ event. Each year, more than 10,000 people from over 120 different countries took part.
The Forum brings together the chief executives of major Russian and international companies, heads of state, political leaders, prime ministers, deputy prime ministers, departmental ministers, and governors. The key purpose of the Forum is to provide a practical tool for business, helping to overcome the barriers, both geographical and informational, dividing Russia and other countries.
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Expo forum is the most cutting-edge venue of its kind anywhere in Russia or Europe for holding business and entertainment events of any size and format exhibitions, conventions, forums, sports and cultural events. The indoor and outdoor exhibition space encompasses a huge ability to display and to adapt to the most challenging of exhibition requirements.
Another element that has further exemplified St Petersburg as a city with a superb ability to attract, host, accommodate vast numbers of businessmen, tourists and fans of business and sporting events was the utilisation of St Petersburg to host Football matches during the FIFA World Cup 2018 competition. In general, the feedback was excellent.
There were so many observations by fans fully insistent that yes St Petersburg and Russia was indeed a fantastic city and country that all in unison agreed that its people, food, and geography were something to be admired, seen, and explored by the global audience. Demystifying the general perception will also hugely benefit potential companies and individuals to venture to the city — where the global media coverage portraying Russia as a cold, dull, and a dangerous country was very much reported before the event…
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Many interesting facets of information were gathered during the period of the FIFA World Cup 2018 which will further enhance St Petersburg's ability to attract new and younger tourists to the city both business and touristic.
This information that was gathered by the visitors to all the major host cities including St Petersburg where they shared their thoughts and feelings about their experience in Russia will be essential to the city reviewing patterns of behaviour, wants and needs and customer awareness and maintaining an understanding of a highly competitive marketplace.
The first interesting finding was that 60+% of those who left positive comments fell into the 23 — 45 age group, a much younger demographic, than the one Russia ends up marketing itself to with the typical cultural and historical programs built around numerous historical sites, museums, and tours that St Petersburg has had to offer historically.. They were more motivated to go and experience the cities' bars and restaurants and architectural sights that were unique to the city.
St Petersburg has a whole host of bars, restaurants and cafes — indeed a gastronomic delight to business travellers used to experience vast nuances of cultural cuisine. Indeed St Pete is ideally placed to service business travellers high demand in quality when it comes to food. In addition to enjoying walking around and exploring, seeing landmarks, and eating out.
The tourist experience in the Russian host cities of the football tournament exemplified this of which St Petersburg was to the for, similar to that of Business and travel tourists experience visiting any European city for an eventful city break.
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Which brings about another interesting pointer — the topic of outdated and inadequate self-perception and consequent irrelevant marketing of the country based on nostalgia and revolving around the history and glory of the past, while completely disregarding the present-day reality and modern lifestyle of Russia that the tourists enjoyed so much, tourists enjoyed just walking around and exploring, seeing landmarks, and eating out.
The city has well over 3000 hotels to call upon to service an increase in demand from Businesses keen to utilise a destination which is rich in cultural and architecture but now enjoying a gastronomy renaissance together with a multitude of bars and cafes to attract every taste and expense.
One of the newest hotels the Hilton Emporium positioned closely to the Expoforum itself is a newly built modern clean and vibrant hotel offering all the latest functionality and facilities to keep its business visitors completely at home and relaxed with its offering of comfortable rooms and suites On-site restaurants, bars and recreational amenities including a spa, sauna, pool and fitness center to help you unwind after a busy day of conferencing and business meetings within its function rooms. These facilities are not unusual indeed they are trademarks of the Hotel community within the city and the high levels of customer care now afforded to its tourist audience.
Pushkin which has been declared a world heritage site. The palace has its origins from 1717 when Catherine I of Russia hired German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein to build her a summer palace for her distractions. The comfortable rooms and suites have all you need for a relaxing and productive stay. On-site restaurants, bars and recreational amenities including a spa, sauna, pool and fitness centre will help you unwind after a busy day.
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Alternatively, The dome of the St. Petersburg planetarium measures 37 meters in diameter — two meters bigger than the former record holder in the Japanese city of Nagoya. Aside from observing the starry sky, visitors can also take a tour around the Museum of Space Exhibits and the interactive hall equipped with virtual reality technology.
There are also educational classes and observatories. Several touch screen tablets dotted around the space even allow people to rotate the dome of the planetarium. So if you want to do something truly out of this world, a visit to the Planetarium will compliment any business trip here.
Steady growth in tourism is being witnessed with an increase in figures from 6.9 million in 2016 to 7.2 Million in 2018. My prediction is that St Petersburg will see further substantial growth during 2018 and therefore not only maintain itself as a global icon for traditional tourism but also become a global gem for business tourism too.
