Tourists spent 29.2 million
nights in Norway's
accommodation facilities in 2011, which is 9% more than a year earlier. At the
same time 27% of overnights were made by foreign tourists. 187 thousand fell on
Russian tourists, 77% of which stayed in hotels and 14% - in campings. The
number Russian overnights grew by 8% in comparison with 2010. These numbers
were adduced by Olga Philippenko, the Head of the Council of Tourism in Russia, at the press conference devoted to
summer tourism possibilities of Norway.
She noted that the Russians
travel about the country more and more actively, choose combined routes including
sightseeing programs around the cities and active recreation on the fjords.
Fishing becomes more and more popular, 53% of tourist flow from Russia falls on
the summer season.
In Russia
the promotion of summer tourist possibilities of Norway started in the beginning of
May. The holiday-in-the-land-of-fjords advertisement will be on TV channels
Russia-1 and Russia-2, radio, billboards, transport and on the internet. In the
network of the promotion it’s planned to place advertising stands at Moscow’s and St.
Petersburg’s railway stations and in the capital’s
shopping center Europeysky. The stands, with the help of 3D-effect, will allow
visitors to get pictures with the background of the fjords. An open-air
festival Legends of the Norway Vikings will take place in St. Petersburg from 18-20 of May, and on the 13th
of May the Russian Fishing tournament will be supported by the Counsil for
Tourism of Norway.
“Most of the advertisement we
plan to do on the internet. We pay a lot of attention to our website
visitnorway.ru; more and more tourists visit it every year. With its help they can
form their itineraries on their own. This year our website visitnorway.ru got
its first Webby Awards as the best tourist portal in the world”, - added Mrs.
Philippenko.
She also said that in July for
the first time Jazz Tour organizes a chain of four charter flights to the
capital of Northern Norway - Tromso. “It’s a breakthrough
of the year. Northern Norway is very beautiful
and differs from the region of fjords. It’s difficult for the Russians to get
there; they have to do a lot of stopovers. And now a direct flight is
available. One can visit the North Cape, go fishing at Lofoten
Islands, visit Spitsbergen”,
- said Olga Philippenko. According to her, various tours based on the flight
will be on offer. They will include fishing, excursions and active recreation
in Tromso and Malangen resort, as well as cruises around the Spitsbergen
archipelago.
