All news
They went full steam ahead: the share of family tourism in St. Petersburg exceeded 50%
Every year, about a million children visit St. Petersburg for tourism purposes, Valery Gordin, Director of the Institute of Culture and Tourism Management of the Higher School of Economics at St. Petersburg National Research University, reported at the XXII Forum of Strategists. This figure is similar to the total number of minors in St. Petersburg. According to official data, one million young residents visited kindergartens, schools and universities in the city in September.
Players in the St. Petersburg tourism industry have not yet adapted to their target audience. First of all, problems arise due to deep internal disagreements. For example, the same preschoolers and teenagers have completely different interests and forms of communication, the expert noted.
In his opinion, despite the fact that today in St. Petersburg there are citywide and private Internet resources with announcements of events for children, they are still created for adults and are not adapted to children's interests. In general, the websites of most market players do not have a classification by the consumer model and the child's personality. Conventionally speaking, an event can be divided into "nerds" and "fidgets", indicating the age of the target audience and indicating the presence of a children's room for younger family members, explained Valery Gordin.
In addition, Valery Gordin believes that there are no local markets in St. Petersburg where products from all city manufacturers are sold, which can be taken as souvenirs, including for children. "We are confident that such a platform will be created sooner or later, with or without unification, and this will give a new impetus to the development of city family travel," the expert emphasized.
Victoria Bayramova, Head of Corporate Business Development for the North-West Macroregion at T2 Mobile, noted that tourism market participants can receive analytical data from mobile operators when creating programs for target audiences. “As operators, we know the tourist profile, places visited, types of travel, types of travel and events, such as types of accommodation, categories of expenses and other data, and can increase tourist flows based on this analysis. Even the average bill,” she said.
The contribution of the tourism industry to the gross product of the St. Petersburg region in 2023 amounted to 2.1%, or 482.7 billion rubles, which is 32% more than a year ago, said the head of the St. Petersburg state budget institution. "Department of Parliament and Exhibitions" Sergey Azarenkov. According to official data, last year St. Petersburg was visited by 9.4 million people, compared to 8 million in 2022. And in the first half of 2024, it will be visited by about 5 million tourists.