Nana Gvichiya, Deputy Head of the Committee for Tourism Development, reported on the success of St. Petersburg in the tourism market at the Operating Indicators of St. Petersburg Hotels in 2019 breakfast meeting, organized by Hotel Advisers on January 28. She said that 10.4 million tourists visited St. Petersburg in 2019, including 4.9 million foreigners and 5.5 million Russians. Compared to the previous period, the overall growth amounted to 26.8%, as the official noted, whereas earlier Smolny expected growth of only 10%.
According to the new-old method, the number of foreigners in 2019 increased by 22.5%, and Russian by 31%. The officials consider such impressive dynamics to be a delayed effect of the World Cup and their own efforts to promote in the world tourism market. "We begin to reap the fruits of the FIFA Confederations Cup, the World Cup and Russian publicity," Nana Gvichiya said.
Although more tourists began to come here, they began to spend noticeably less. Nana Gvichiya estimated the total tourism contribution to the economy of St. Petersburg in 2019 at RUB 375 billion. And the growth was only 2%, compared with last year. The indicator was calculated according to the Russiatourism Agency. It includes both accommodation and tourism services, and all related services, food, transport, theaters, and museums. If you divide this amount by the number of tourists, it turns out that one tourist brings about RUB 36 thousand to the city. Usually, a traveler spends 3–5 days in St. Petersburg, thus, on average he/she spends RUB 9 thousand per day.
https://www.fontanka.ru/2020/01/28/140/