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From 14^th to 16^th March, Calella assisted to the MITT Moscow Fair (Russia). MITT is the biggest and most important travelling fair from Russia. With 1.800 companies participating and more than 192 destinations, this fair becomes one of the main channels to promote Calella in the Russian market.

As in other occasions, Calella participates with the Council of Barcelona (Diputació de Barcelona) in the main stand of the Catalan Tourist Agency (Agència Catalana de Turisme) and shares desk with other destinations from the Barcelona Coast (Costa de Barcelona). The fair, which is focused on tourism professionals, allowed our representative from Calella to get interviews and meetings with Russian agencies and TTOO who were interested in finding out more about our destination.

Sun, beach and culture are the main attractions for the Russian tourist.

According to information given by the Catalan Tourist Agency (Agencia Catalana de Turisme), the Russian tourist travel mainly for fun and what they look for is sun and beach, family environment, cultural products and wellness. It is a middle-high class tourism that mainly has holidays on the summer months. Because of its interest in cultural products, the main spending of the Russian tourist is in package tours, transport and excursions. As average, the Russian tourist spends 166.50 € per day (+28.3% in relation with 2015), and it is the second nationality that spends the most, only surpassed by the Scandinavian Countries.

 One of the key factors to guarantee the fidelity of this market is the devaluation of the Rouble in a 25% in relation with the Euro. This is an indicator that situates the Catalan and Spanish market as a competitive destination for the Russian market.

Catalonia is still the most chosen location for the Russian tourist that visits Spain. During 2016, more than half of the Russians that visited Spain (61%) chose Catalonia, surpassing Valencia and the Balearic Islands. In Calella, there has been 196.995 overnight stays from Russian tourist in 2016, becoming the fourth nationality that visited our city the most.

2017: Dual Year of Tourism between Russia and Spain.

The Spanish Council of Industry, Energy and Tourism (Ministerio de Industria, Energía y Turismo) and the Russian Council of Culture are the organizers of the Dual Year that wants to make stronger the links between Russian and Spanish touristic business, the development of the promotion of both destinations and also the investments.

Another course of action has been simplifying the process to get touristic visas for short and long stays. In this way, one year ago a second visa centre opened in Moscow for TTOO, travel agencies and clients.