Lithuania experiences dramatic decline in Russian tourists

According to the Russian Union of Tourism (RUT), Lithuania has experienced the most drastic decrease of the number of visitors from Russia.

Among EU destinations, Lithuania has demonstrated the fastest negative dynamic, said RUT spokeswoman, Irina Tyurina.

“The number of Russian tourists to Lithuania fell by nearly 73 percent in the first half of 2015 [compared to the same period of 2014],” she said.

In this regard, Lithuania took the dubious prize compared to the other European countries, Tyrina said, noting that the EU-average decline of Russia-originated tourism flow in that period has been 37.4 percent, year-on-year. 

In absolute figures, the number of Russian visitors to the EU, both business and leisure visitors amounted to 6.47 million in the first six months of 2015. This constitutes a net decline by two million, year-on-year, and represents a 20-year low. 

The negative trend started in 2014, with the total decline of 11.5 percent in the first half of that year compared to the same period of 2013.

In the RUT anti-rating, Lithuania is followed by Greece with 53.5 percent decline and Austria with at 43.4 percent.

Turina said the principal reason behind the shrinking of the tourism flows from Russia has been sharp depreciation of the Russian Ruble against the euro and U.S. dollar. 

Since autumn 2014, the Ruble has depreciated by nearly 50 percent against the Euro and the U.S. Dollar basket 

The other reason is that the majority of the foreign commercial airlines left the Russian market due to the Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in 2014-2015 over its involvement in Ukrainian crisis. 

“This process started last year and it has continued into this year,” Tyurina said.

RUT did not take into account the European countries which are not EU members, such as Norway, Sweden, Montenegro, Serbia and others.

According to the Lietuvos Rytas newspaper, the vacuum cause by the Russian and, to some degree, Belorussian tourists, has been refilled by the 22,200 visitors from Asian countries - particularly China and Japan, as well as Israel.

The number of Japanese tourists to Lithuania skyrocketed in January-June 2015 by nearly 92 percent compared to the same period of 2014. The number of Chinese visitors to Vilnius hiked by 66.8 percent, and Israelis took the third position with a growth of over 56 percent.