More than one-third of Russians to spend summer holidays on ‘staycations’

Russia’s economic crisis has now encroached on summer travel patterns, with 35 percent of Russians intending to spend this season’s vacation time at their dachas, as opposed to elsewhere, according to a study by Russian Public Opinion Research Center, VTsIOM. This is the highest this figure (at just 19 percent in 2011 and 26 percent in 2015) has been over the past 12 years.

An additional 45 percent of survey participants intend to spend their summer holidays at home, though the percent of those preferring to stay at home remains consistently high year after year, with this figure amounting to 40 percent in 2015.

Those who plan to travel elsewhere show an overwhelming preference for travel within Russia, with 9 percent hoping to visiting Russian regions other than those in which they live and 8 percent hoping to visit localities situated along the coast of the Black Sea. Only 3 percent of those surveyed intend to spend their summers abroad.

The results of the VTsIOM survey suggest that Russians are characterized by a relatively low rate of mobility in general, with 80 percent of those surveyed admitting to not having left the country within the past five years. Though trips abroad are facilitated by higher incomes, 65 percent of those surveyed with above average incomes admitted to not having left the country in the past five years, either. This percent was 89 for respondents in the middle income range.

Fifty-six percent of respondents said that they do not possess passports, i.e. specifically “international” passports that would enable them to travel outside of the Russian Federation, and that they had no intention of applying for one. Eighty-three percent of such respondents were aged over 60. Only 25 percent of those surveyed possess international passports, and only 18 percent intend to apply for them.

These statistics are relatively consistent with the findings of a recent Levada-Center survey that suggested that 72 percent of Russians lack a passport that would enable them to travel abroad.

Surprisingly, however, the results of the VTsIOM survey suggest that Russians do not travel much within their own country, either, with 64 percent of those surveyed admitting that they had not spent any leisure time in regions other than their own over the past five years.

In response to the question of where they would like to travel if they have the opportunity and resources, 36 percent of respondents said Crimea, whose popularity has noticeably risen over the past five years. Another 23 percent dream of travelling to cities situated along Russia’s Black Sea coast, cities such as Sochi or Anapa.

The lure of countries outside of the former-Soviet space has sharply fallen, with only 21 percent of respondents expressing a desire to spend their summers in these areas in comparison to 31 percent five years earlier.

Ten percent of respondents said that they would choose to remain at home even if they had opportunity and resources to spend their summer holidays elsewhere.