The Effect of Culture on Incoming Tourism in Russia: Focusing on Germany and Great Britain

The dissolution of the Soviet Union negatively affected tourism and tourism industry in the country as the industry found itself in an uncertain environment during the transition period. With the establishment of the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism in 2004, tourism policies became more effective in the Russian Federation, with the Government working to transform the country into a well-known tourist destination of the world. Hence the Russian market tourist services industry of tourist services began rapid development only after 2004, trying to reach level of its foreign competitors. In addition, Russian tourist players seek to provide an acceptable level of service according to international quality standards. Economic crises have led to some serious complications in the Russian tourist market as well as all over the world; therefore, this study is about the problems of the Russian tourist market and their probable solutions. Some issues observed in Russian tourism market are: 1) Russian tourists are dissatisfied with the monotony and inconvenience of package tours; 2) there is a lack of information and sources for constructing personal tours; 3) there is a strong customer distrust to tourism services. Based on development needs the following goals should be achieved: 1) overcome the stagnation of the travel industry; 2) stimulate external and internal travel demand. 3) offer the alternative model of tourist service. To propose an optimal solution, we need to consider the following hypotheses: 1) Most of tourists choose a tour proceeding from the price; 2) The majority of people are not satisfied with the conditions of the package tour; thus, they are forced to abandon the trip; 3) Nowadays a growing number of people who are using online systems for search and purchase transactions. This study is conducted in the field of the Russian tourist market and the British one. The British model gives us a model for adaptation. Methodology strategy includes both qualitative and quantitative analyses – sentiment analysis, and data processing are complemented with some in-depth interviews with representatives of travel companies and focus group research. The result of our study providing the problem-solving will be online platform/application with the database of all tour operators which will offer customers to construct individual tours according their interests without an additional payment to travel agents.