Attract Tourists with Novelty

The devaluation of the ruble has positively influenced the touristic sector of the city – as of year-end 2015 hotel sales grew by 13%. But for a qualitative leap forward in attracting guests, the city of St. Petersburg needs new hallmark sites.

According to JLL, as of year-end 2015, hotel sales in the city grew almost by 13% against the previous year and the revenue per available room (RevPAR) – by over 25% (in average in all segments).
Russian domestic tourists should be stimulated to stay in the city for several days. The city should develop tourist infrastructure, pedestrian areas, interact more closely with tourists operators who work in the domestic tourism segment.
St. Petersburg is known around the world as a beautiful city, but all people dream about visiting perhaps only two places: the Hermitage and Peterhof. Experts believe, it is necessary to construct new modern universal sights of international level that by default will attract a huge amount of tourists from different countries.
Ruslan Syrtsov, commercial director of Glorax Development, reckons that one of the high-profile events was the construction of a new sea port on the Vasilyevsky Island: "Currently, creation of modern architecture and comfort urban environment in the areas adjacent to the Gulf of Finland and the port is already influencing not only the quality of life, but tourist appeal of St. Petersburg as a whole. The new waterfront should become an architectural landmark and a key part of the Northern Capital brand. For that end, all possibilities exist that need to be developed.”
Michail Sokolov, head of MMH projects, believes that there is a significant lack of cheap hotels in St. Petersburg, which negatively affects the flow of both Russian and foreign tourists.
Eugenia Tuchkova, deputy director of the consulting department at Colliers International in St. Petersburg, is sure that to attract tourists to the city it is necessary to hold large entertainment events and festivals. Besides, it is necessary to maintain the tourist flow in low and average seasons. Furthermore, Ms. Tuchkova thinks that it would pay to move the much-touted around the world St. Petersburg International Economic Forum to off-peak months. "In our opinion, it is better not to hold such large business events as St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in summer, when the city is especially attractive for visits and tourists are in abundance. Because of SPIEF, the city becomes inaccessible for tourists almost for a month: hotel prices set records and access to many tourist sites is blocked,” says she.
Ilya Shuravin, the managing partner in Rusland SP, points out that there is a whole list of tourism destinations in the Northwestern Federal District that need deeper study and strategy correction as more opportunities have arisen for foreigners with the ruble sagging. “But today St. Petersburg cannot offer package week programs to the coming Russian tourists, and the standard tourist practice of "coming down for a weekend" does not allow the Region to use its tourist potential to the utmost," concludes Mr. Shuravin.

Opinion:

Tatyana Veller, head of the department of hotel business at the JLL company:
– City image positioning and promoting both inside the country and at the international level, and the visa regime – these are the two measures that may have the greatest influence on tourist flow. Initially, it is important to attract tourists to the city and then offer them qualitative accommodation; however, there are no problems with the first item because of the increased level of domestic tourism.