The number of Russian tourists traveling to Slovakia and other European locations has has dropped significantly in the first half of 2014. In Slovakia, Russian traffic decreased by more than 10 percent y-o-y, which is roughly the amount by which they cased travelling to Ireland, Luxemburg, Slovenia, Croatia or Estonia. The number of Russians coming to the Czech Republic fell by just 7 percent.
Poland, by contrast, attracted for more Russians, as the total number arriving in the country rose 20 percent, according to ČTK. A similar trend was seen in Hungary and Romania. Overall, the total number of Russians heading for Europe dropped by 224,000 or 2.5 percent y-o-y. Jaromír Beránek of Mag Consulting told ČTK that this is due to international tension and because of the bankruptcy of several major Russian travel agencies.
