Travel
From Latvia to Spain: How the lack of Russian tourists has impacted countries across Europe
By Joshua Askew & David Mac Dougall & Laura Llach with AFP
Flush Russian tourists are now a thing of the past in Europe, forcing countries to adapt.
If you’re looking for Russian tourists in Europe this summer, they’ll be hard to spot.
There were 84 per cent fewer Russian visitors to Europe in 2022, according to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR).
That figure is not likely to change much at all this year, as the summer season hots up.
While the very wealthiest continue to visit the region, middle-class Russians have almost entirely disappeared, citing mounting logistical difficulties and costs.
The reason is of course Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine, which has prompted the West to erect barriers not seen since the dark days of the Cold War in support of its embattled ally.
But what effect is this loss of Russian tourists having on Europe? We look at two destinations bordering Russia and two which used to welcome droves of Russian visitors to find out more.
Latvia: Untapped markets to fill the void
Latvia has long been a magnet for Russian travellers, owing to its location and historical ties as part of the Soviet Union.
The tiny Baltic state’s vibrant tourism industry was battered by the COVID pandemic, like many others, but losing visitors from Russia really put the boot in.
In solidarity with Ukraine, Russian tourists were banned in September 2022, with the country’s Foreign Minister Edgar Rinkevics tweeting “You’re not welcome here – you need to end the war against Ukraine and be gone from that beautiful country!”
“Russia was an important market,” Vladislavs Korjagins, CEO of the Baltic Travel Group tells Euronews Travel. “Of course, we are missing it.”
“From an economic perspective, this decision may not have helped local businesses. But, on the political level, we support Ukraine.”
“It’s the right decision,” he adds. “People understand we cannot welcome Russian tourists, while their soldiers are attacking Ukrainians.”
The “biggest blow” from the Ukraine war was many Westerners now felt the Baltics were unsafe, possibly the “next target” for Russian troops, though this misperception is now improving, explains Korjagins.
Some 70 per cent of group bookings were cancelled in the aftermath of the February 2022 invasion, according to estimates from the Latvian tourism sector.
Yet, the industry is not accepting these losses idly.
It has diversified into new, untapped markets, such as the Gulf, and become more efficient through scaling down labour costs, according to Korjagins.
“Truth is: We adapted,” he adds.
Finland: Domestic tourism
Around 1.2 million Russian day-trippers travelled by bus or car over the border into eastern Finland every single year, before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion, official figures show.
While some were checking into hotels, most spent money in local supermarkets – on average €170 per day in the city of Lappeenranta.
But much of the tourist infrastructure in Finland‘s Lakeland District did not necessarily rely on Russian tourists, despite their large volume.
“People who were really catering to cross-border traffic are no longer in business,” explains Mirka Rahman, Lappeenranta’s Director of Tourism. “There were a lot of mini-buses and bigger buses bringing the daily visitors but they were all Russian and not Finnish companies.”
“They bought clothes, detergent, chocolate, fish, the majority of it was food items from the supermarket as Finnish brands are known for high quality. Some of it was to take home for themselves, and some of it was to take home and sell,” she tells Euronews Travel.
That pre-war flood of visitors across the EU’s longest border with Russia has now slowed to a trickle – restricted to dual nationals or those with a visa allowing them to come and go.
The South Karelia region, with Lappeenranta its biggest city, has lost around 100,000 Russian overnight stays since the start of the war.
But it has pivoted towards marketing more to Finns as a domestic holiday destination, while looking for customers in Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries – tourists who spend far more per day, Rahman notes, than their Russian counterparts.
“The trends have changed,” says Rahman. “Nobody here is calculating on the return of the Russians.”
Spain: High-spending Russian tourists no longer welcome
Not only those on Russia’s borders are affected.
Although the country was never a major source of visitors to Spain – dwarfed by the English, German and French – Russians were one of the fastest-growing groups in recent years, data from the Salou Cambrils La Pineda Hotel Association shows.
Around 1.3 million Russian travellers arrived in the southern European country in 2019, representing 1.3 per cent of the total, according to Spain’s National Statistics Institute.
Yet, their absence is still felt, particularly since some areas were more heavily reliant on Russian tourists than others, such as Costa Dorada, where they represented between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of all visitors.
“Last year, the effects of the lack of tourism were clear and this year it is also noticeable,” Albert Savé, President of the Costa Dorada Hotel Association, in Cataluña, tells Euronews Travel.
He says there were 1,290,000 overnight stays in the area in 2019, which has now gone to zero – bar the “one or two Russians” coming by car or through Turkey or Finland.
What set Russians apart, Savé continues, was their high level of luxury consumption, which supported specialist local businesses.
“When they were here, [Russians] did spend because they came from afar… They would go on a lot of excursions… [and] buy products from the area… because of the attraction of wine, oil, sausages… clothes,” he says.
“Their behaviour was different from [the] British, who come for the sun.”
Czech Republic: Battling inflation and a drop in tourists
Like in Spain, Czech spa towns have seen a sharp drop in wealthy Russian visitors.
Towns Karlovy Vary, Marianske Lazne and Frantiskovy Lazne saw a glimmer of hope when UNESCO listed them as World Heritage sites in 2021.
But their joy was short-lived.
When Russia’s tanks steamed across the Ukrainian border, the Central European country joined European sanctions slapped on the country.
The share of Russian customers – their biggest spenders, who also stay far longer than locals – fell from 61,000 in 2019 to just a few thousand last year.
“The average Czech tourist spends around 700 crowns (€30) a day. Russian-speaking guests spend more than 3,500 crowns (€150),” says Czech Tourism Director Jan Herget.
Losing Russian tourists was only part of their troubles, however.
Spa towns are also grappling with staff shortages, with Czech unemployed at 3.5 per cent over the past two years, and inflation only now just declining from a record high of 18 per cent in September.
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Travel
A 4-year cruise or a €1 house in Italy: Inside the schemes helping Americans skip Trump’s presidency
Searches by Americans for moving abroad soared in the 24 hours after the first polls closed, according to Google data.
Following the recent US election result, Google searches for ‘how to move to Europe’ increased by more than 1,000 per cent in some countries.
Searches by Americans for moving to Canada and Australia soared by 1,270 and 820 per cent respectively in the 24 hours after the first polls closed, according to Google data.
The interest in leaving the States has not gone unnoticed by marketing firms.
A residential cruise ship is now offering Americans a four-year ‘escape’ trip while a Sardinian village has relaunched its €1 house scheme.
Cruise company offers four-year escape from Trump
Cruise firm Villa Vie Residences is marketing a four-year round the world trip to Americans looking to skip Donald Trump’s second term as president.
The Tour La Vie programme offers passengers a stay of up to four years onboard while visiting 140 countries – which doesn’t include the US.
The irreverently named packages include a one-year ‘Escape from Reality’ cruise, a two-year ‘Mid-Term Selection’ option, a three-year ‘Everywhere but Home’ cruise, and the four-year ‘Skip Forward’ trip.
Guests would join the Villa Vie Odyssey, a residential cruise ship which set sail from Belfast in September, several months into its voyage.
“We came up with this marketing campaign before we even knew who would win. Regardless of who would have won, you would have half of the population upset,” CEO Mikael Petterson told US news site Newsweek.
“Quite frankly, we don’t have a political view one way or the other. We just wanted to give people who feel threatened to have a way to get out.”
Prices start at a little under $40,000 (€38,000) a year. For those opting for the full four-year escape, single-occupancy cabins start at $256,000 (€243,000) while double-occupancy costs up to $320,000 (€303,000).
The price includes all food and drinks (alcohol only at dinner), WiFi, medical visits, weekly housekeeping service and bi-weekly laundry.
Sardinian village relaunches €1 house scheme for Americans
In rural Sardinia, the village of Ollolai has revived its €1 house scheme, now targeting Americans exhausted by the election.
The homes-for-the-price-of-an-espresso offer has been relaunched for US citizens “worned [sic] out by global politics” and “looking to embrace a more balanced lifestyle”, local authorities write on the village’s website.
“Of course, we can’t specifically mention the name of one US president who just got elected, but we all know that he’s the one from whom many Americans want to get away from now and leave the country,” village mayor Francesco Columbo told US news site CNN.
“We have specifically created this website now to meet US post-elections relocation needs.”
Those needs include slowing down and recharging with Ollolai’s dreamy Mediterranean lifestyle.
“Nestled in pristine nature, surrounded by incredible cuisine, and immersed in a community with ancient traditions in the rare Earth’s Blue Zone, Ollolai is the perfect destination to reconnect, recharge and embrace a new way of life,” the website claims.
Available properties will soon be listed online with prices ranging from €1 for houses needing substantial renovations to €100,000 for those that are ready to live in.
This is not the first time the village in Sardinia has put houses for a pittance on the market. In a bid to halt a steep population decline, Ollolai began selling off abandoned homes in 2018 to people willing to carry out $25,000 (€24,000) of renovations within a three-year timespan.
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Catalonia has said they want to rid Barcelona of its 10,000 holiday lets in the next 5 years.
Catalonia’s recent ban on Airbnb-style holiday rentals breaches EU law, according to a complaint filed with the European Commission by an industry group.
The European Holiday Home Association claims that the ban, introduced by Catalonia in June this year, breaches the provision of services directive.
The Spanish region announced that they wanted to rid Barcelona of its 10,000 tourist flat licences over the next five years. The city has not granted new licences since 2014 but this has not helped to stem a housing crisis, with locals saying they can not find places to live at affordable prices.
Why has Barcelona’s Airbnb ban been challenged?
“We are convinced that EU law has not been respected,” Viktorija Molnar, Secretary General of the European Holiday Home Association (EHHA), said in a statement released on Wednesday.
“By submitting the EU complaint, we hope that the European Commission will take a step further and open a formal infringement procedure against Spain,” added Molnar, whose group represents short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and Expedia’s Vrbo.
The move follows legal concerns raised by the European Commission itself that restrictions brought in by the Spanish region were disproportionate to the aim of tackling housing shortages.
EHHA argues that “unjustified, disproportionate and unsuitable” restrictions breach the EU’s Services Directive, which regulates a swathe of activities from hotels to legal advice. They also said that claims about the impact of Airbnb on housing affordability are “politically inflamed”.
The lobby group may have support from the European Commission itself, whose officials wrote to Spanish authorities to protest the law in February according to a document seen by Euronews Travel.
“The Commission services consider that the restrictions laid down in [Catalonia’s] Decree-law 3/2023 are not suitable to attain the objective of fighting housing shortage and are disproportionate to that objective,” the document said.
Spanish authorities could have also considered less swingeing restrictions and hadn’t offered evidence that short-term rentals were responsible for housing market tensions, it added – noting that there were three times as many empty dwellings as tourist rental properties in Catalonia.
Barcelona is just one European holiday destinations trying to find ways to tackle overtourism.
Cities like Venice have banned cruise ships from stopping on their shores, Athens regularly restricts visitor numbers at the famous Acropolis and Amsterdam is moving its red light district out of the city centre to try and clean up its image.
How the European Commission is taking on holiday rentals
Brussels has already taken action to bring the sharing economy within the regulatory fold, offering new rights to platform workers and hiking value-added tax on short-term lets and ridesharing apps such as Uber.
But the issue could prove totemic for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – who has created the first-ever European Commissioner for Housing as part of her second mandate, set to take office within weeks.
She has told Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen to “tackle systemic issues with short-term accommodation rentals”, in a mission letter that handed him the housing brief alongside responsibility for energy policy.
A spokesperson for the Catalan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CORRECTION(20 November, 10:02): corrects spelling of Molnar’s name
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The move has been criticised by other tech companies who have branded Microsoft as being a “panic mode”.
In opening remarks to a company conference in the United States on Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has set the stage for where the company is taking its artificial intelligence (AI) business.
AI developers are increasingly pitching the next wave of generative AI (GenAI) chatbots as AI “agents” that can do more useful things on people’s behalf.
But the cost of building and running AI tools is so high that more investors are questioning whether the technology’s promise is overblown.
Microsoft said last month that it’s preparing for a world where “every organisation will have a constellation of agents – ranging from simple prompt-and-response to fully autonomous”.
Microsoft elaborated in a blog post Tuesday that such autonomous agents “can operate around the clock to review and approve customer returns or go over shipping invoices to help businesses avoid costly supply-chain errors”.
Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference caters to its big business customers.
Microsoft criticised
The pivot toward so-called “agentic AI” comes as some users are seeing limits to the large language models behind chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s own Copilot.
Those systems work by predicting the most plausible next word in a sentence and are good at certain writing-based work tasks.
But tech companies have been working to build AI tools that are better at longer-range planning and reasoning so they can access the web or control computers and perform tasks on their own on a user’s behalf.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has criticized Microsoft’s pivot. Salesforce also has its “Agentforce” service that uses AI in sales, marketing, and other tasks.
“Microsoft rebranding Copilot as ‘agents’? That’s panic mode,” Benioff said in a social media post last month. He went on to claim that Microsoft’s flagship AI assistant, called Copilot, is “a flop” that is inaccurate and spills corporate data.
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