ABU Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) is to become the first overseas destination to have a visitor centre in Moscow when it opens its Russia office next month.
The new facility will be in central Moscow and news of the development was revealed at Leisure Moscow, the country’s leading travel exhibition, where Abu Dhabi has mounted a pavilion shared by 10 of its key stakeholders including Etihad which operates a daily Moscow-Abu Dhabi service.
“Russia has become an increasingly important market for us with Etihad bringing Russian tourists within just five hours flight time of Abu Dhabi,” said Mubarak Al Muhairi, director general, ADTA.
“Russia is showing great promise for us with hotels in Abu Dhabi recording a 21 per cent increase in guests from the country in the first seven months of this year.
“We are now looking to capitalise on these green shoots of growth and will be mounting an intensive programme of inbound familiarisation trips for Russian travel trade and media. We are also embracing the Russian language across all of our marketing material and spearheading the recruitment and training of Russian-speaking tour guides to work in the emirate.”