Russia strengthens status of largest market of tourist services for Belarus – Seliverstov

In 2025, the Russian Federation accounted for 83.8% of Belarusian tourism exports, thus strengthening Russia’s status as the largest and most stable market for Belarus. This was stated on September 28 by the Ambassador of Belarus to Russia Yuri Seliverstov during a speech to the participants of the international practical conference of the club of leaders of health tourism “Dialogues of skill”. Experience of sanatorium-resort organizations of Belarus and Russia, writes sb.by.

In turn, the interest of Belarusian citizens to the tourist routes of Russia has significantly increased, Yuri Seliverstov added. One of the important factors of cooperation within the framework of the Union State, the Ambassador of Belarus called the development of transport connectivity between the cities of the two countries.

- Cooperation with those Russian regions with which direct air and railway communication is established is particularly actively developing. Today, more than 100 flights a week connect the regional centers of Belarus with Moscow, St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Mineral Waters, Samara, Chelyabinsk, Perm, Cheboksary and other cities. There are 25 pairs of trains on the railway, which annually carry more than 3 million passengers, the diplomat added.

According to the Belarusian Embassy in Russia, voiced by Yuri Seliverstov, the tourist flow of Russians in 2025 amounted to 6.8 million people. This is higher than in 2024, but it is only 95.8% of the level of 2019, which means that the indicator is not fully recovered from the pandemic. At the same time, the number of organized Belarusian tourists and excursionists who visited Russia in 2025 amounted to about 163 thousand people, which is a historical maximum, the Belarusian ambassador to Russia said.

- The results of 7 months of 2026 continue to demonstrate the high economic efficiency of the partnership: the mutual turnover of tourist services increased by 17.6 percent compared to the same period in 2025. Despite the fact that the tourism industry makes a significant contribution to the economies of Belarus and Russia, providing a multiplier effect for related industries, today it is safe to say that the potential for increasing mutual tourist flows and deepening bilateral cooperation remains significant. Today, tourists still note the lack of service along the entire chain of services and support in digital form: booking housing, buying tickets, searching for routes, ordering excursions, Yuri Seliverstov outlined reserves for the tourism industry of the Union.

The Belarusian industry’s goal for the next five years is to double the contribution of tourism to the economy. And for this it is necessary to create a country digital ecosystem – a personal digital assistant for tourists, the Belarusian Ambassador to Russia stated.

The digital assistant should select routes not only based on the starting and end points, but also taking into account the interests of the traveler (history, gastronomy, religion, extreme), budget, restrictions (health, nutrition, accessible environment), group composition, mode of movement, pace of trip and other parameters. An important element of the ecosystem should be a single booking window - from transport tickets and vouchers to sanatorium tickets for excursions and car rental. As a result, the ideal travel platform is a system that combines planning, booking, navigation, and travel support. It should accompany the tourist at all stages: from choosing a direction and drawing up a route to returning home, concluded Yuri Seliverstov. Belarus became the leader of the CIS in tourism development, breaking the Western myth about the country’s closure