SFC Markets and Finance | Moscow Tourism Committee Chairman: We offers visitors unique experiences

南方财经全媒体记者郑青亭 李依农 莫斯科、上海报道

In the first half of 2024, Moscow experienced strong growth in its tourism industry, with the number of visitors from non-CIS countries increasing by 70% year-on-year. Among them, Chinese tourists topped the list with 190,000 visitors, a 2.4-fold increase compared to the same period last year. Currently, there are 98 weekly flights between Moscow and China, further linking the travelers from the two nations.

What makes this city so captivating? And what efforts has it made to attract a growing number of international visitors? In an exclusive inteview, Evgeny Kozlov, Acting First Deputy Head of the Moscow Mayor and Government Office, and Chairman of the Tourism Committee of the City of Moscow, shares his insights with SFC reporter.

SFC Markets and Finance: Moscow is one of the most popular cities in the world among foreign tourists. What, in your opinion, makes Moscow uniquely beautiful? Give five keywords that describe Moscow and tell us why.

Evgeny Kozlov: Five fingers, five key words. Thank you for this question. You are quite right because you may not describe the Moscow in one word. Moscow is the universe of difference experience, you may choose and open for you here in Moscow.

To summarize them, we can say that Moscow is a really modern city, modern and innovative. Then, Moscow is very entertainable. You may find anything you want to spend your time here in Moscow. Then Moscow is really cultural, it is the mix of many cultures which comes from the past and looks to the future of our state. Moscow is really historical. We have hundreds of years of the development of history. Then it is comfortable. It is really comfortable to live in and to visit for.

SFC Markets and Finance: Apart from Red Square and the Kremlin, please tell us about other must-see sights and attractions in Moscow.

Evgeny Kozlov: The red square and the district around red square, the historical center of red square. But then the fact that we have really the great park of history and park of all our economic and political achievements like the destination we put in park. We called it the exhibition of our economic destinations. You have the same park in Beijing, like the sister project in here. And maybe you may know the history of Soviet Union, the history of all the achievements of the past and now it is the achievement of the plans for the future in this VDNH here.

Also you may see the great park just in the center of Moscow. Maybe you may see, as I mentioned before, in Moscow during the winter, really cold weather, and it is comfortable to have a walk and you may choose all the streets near the center to see how it is very well decorated. So it's not a particular point to visit, but to walk all around the center because every building and every light is unique in here.

SFC Markets and Finance: During the Christmas and New Year holidays, many tourists are coming to Moscow to experience the capital's festive season. What would you advise them to do?

Evgeny Kozlov: Travel tip one, just to use your warm clothes to come to Moscow. Second, please don't forget to use your smartphone as the interpreter and the translator to communicate with the people, because not many people, as for now, speak Chinese, but many of them speak English and you may use your phone just to navigate and communicate. 

Third hint is just tasting new (things), verything is very tasteful in Moscow. You may go to any restaurant, to any cafe, to any fast food point to get your own feelings for tasting new food. It is really tasty. I may advise to open to the different type of tastes for Russian cuisine for Chinese people. And please go to our museum with the great exhibitions, which are as usual opened for any tourists.

SFC Markets and Finance: What are your favorite activities in winter? 

Evgeny Kozlov: To have a walk with my family. During this particular winter season, more sports are in here. And we will have like the winter festival points not only in the center, but almost in every district of Moscow, there will be the place on the squares, just where you can spend your time to see a lot of artists over there, make some winter sport activities over there. That's our ambition to promote the time our people spent outside.

SFC Markets and Finance: Moscow is becoming a popular tourist destination for Chinese tourists. Is China the largest source of tourists for Moscow? What are the reasons for this? Do you expect further growth in the number of Chinese tourists?

Evgeny Kozlov: Yes, we are expecting the rise of China tourists, and we do our best to show our generosity and our hospitality for the tourists.

As I mentioned before, Moscow is very safe and really deep to see your own Moscow. We don't really know the particular motivation, in which Chinese citizen prefer Moscow for the personal use, in whole, we understand, it is the culture, the safety and the gastronomic, but still, we need to understand more the motivations for every particular person, to give more personalized experience for everyone, not only to travel in a group, but also for individual travels.

And one of our priorities is to give more information, more tourist products for individual tourists. So we work with Ctrip platform in order to allow people who want to visit Moscow to construct their own customized journey, via Ctrip to collect the basic sightseeing you may want to visit, to advise good restaurant.

After that, we will make some kind of research, “What are the motivators? What are the barriers?” , some kind of marketing research. Then we will make a new promotion, new tourist marketing instruments and new products to activate the individual tourists firstly, to come to Moscow. I hope that as result, we will expect more tourists.

SFC Markets and Finance: How do Chinese tourists differ from other tourists in terms of preferences and needs?

Evgeny Kozlov: China tourists want to learn a lot. They are very intensive in their schedule. They're, all the time, in the busy. They may go to four or five different places within a day, with small stops between them, because they want to see every detail in the (city). Maybe from my point of view, I might just give the advice, please, be a little bit more slower, relax, calmer, to see the nice of Moscow.

SFC Markets and Finance: What efforts has the Moscow City Tourism Committee made to attract the interest of Chinese tourists?

Evgeny Kozlov: We talked before, about the navigation in Chinese. Then we have, as for now, our people who work in tourism industry and hospitality sphere, know how to use more IT technology, to communicate not only with Chinese tourists, but tourists who come from all over the world.

Then we have the special China friendly program in here in Moscow, so the business from China may known which place is the best way to attract Chinese tourists, and we promote business to study more to understand the mentality, the culture, the way the tourist make the consumption of this particular sites, so to give the wider opportunity by rise the number of places to visit for.

SFC Markets and Finance: As Chairman of the Moscow City Tourism Committee, what is your vision for Moscow? How do you plan to make the capital even more attractive to foreign tourists?

Evgeny Kozlov: We should work as a global team with all our partners, with our partners in other regions of Russia, and with the partners in BRICS countries. With this way, we can increase mutual tourist flow. We see the space of mutual trust among us. So I think we should just believe in each other and work with each other. And economic figures will come to a success.

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