Press releases

MINSK, 3 March (BelTA) - In 2015 Belarus welcomed around 300,000 tourists, BelTA learned from the National Statistics Committee.

“About 300,000 tourists and sightseers made visits to Belarus in 2015. Most of the tourists were from Russia,” the National Statistics Committee said.

Among countries outside the CIS the leaders by the number of visits to Belarus were Germany, China, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, France, and Estonia. The average duration of stay was 5 days (4 days in 2014).

The National Statistics Committee noted that Belarus continues to develop domestic tourism. In 2015, the number of tourists inside the country amounted to 91,500 (56,200 in 2014), and that of sightseers to 745,200 (647,500 in 2014). In the past year hotels and similar accommodation facilities had 1,606,100 guests. More than half (57.2%) were citizens of Belarus. Citizens of other states accounted for 42.8%, including 31% from the CIS countries.

Spa and health facilities had 760,700 guests, of whom 172,900 or 22.7% were foreign nationals.

According to the Taxes and Duties Ministry of Belarus, at the end of 2015 there were 2,263 rural tourism facilities in Belarus (346 in Brest Oblast, 605 in Vitebsk Oblast, 196 in Gomel Oblast, 303 in Grodno Oblast, 597 in Minsk Oblast, and 216 in Mogilev Oblast). In 2015 the number of rural tourists totaled 294,300, of whom 88.1% were citizens of Belarus.