ATOR made a summary of the characteristics of the foreign fans flow in Russia.

How many foreign fans will Russia host:

According to FIFA, a week before the World Cup, more than 2.4 million tickets were sold for the matches. Russian fans bought almost 872 thousand of them. The rest of the tickets were bought by fans from the US (88.8 thousand), Brazil (72.5 thousand), Colombia (65.2 thousand), Germany (62.5 thousand), Mexico (60.3 thousand), Argentina (54 thousand), Peru (43.6 thousand), China (40.3 thousand), Australia (36.4 thousand) and England (32.4 thousand). The share of foreign flow is 54%, but by the end of the championship, the figures may still change.

A few days before the start of the championship, the Ministry of communications estimated that fans from foreign countries were issued about 550 thousand FAN ID. The leaders in the number of applications are US, Mexico, China, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Germany, Brazil, Egypt.

Among the rarest guests of the Championship are citizens of Somalia, Botswana, the Faroe Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, Montserrat, as well as fans from the Aland Islands, North Korea, Belize, Mayotte, Guyana and even the Coconut Islands.

What cities will be the most visited:

Tour operators believe that the largest number of fans will be in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The city Department of sports and tourism expects that from mid-June to mid-July from 800 thousand to 1 million tourists, about 400 thousand of which will be foreigners, will visit Moscow. About 500 thousand fans will take the Moscow suburbs.

In St. Petersburg, about 400 thousand fans are expected; passenger traffic to St. Petersburg on international and Russian routes from June 11 to July 23 will be, according to preliminary data, about 650 thousand people.

Kaliningrad authorities expect that from 15 to 30 June about 130 thousand people will come to the city, 60 thousand of which are Russians. The number of external arrivals for each of the four matches will be up to 25 thousand fans.

About 130 thousand foreign fans will arrive in Sochi; the tourist flow to Yekaterinburg, which will host 4 matches of the group stage, will be about 116 thousand people. About 160 thousand tourists are expected in Volgograd, but the vast majority of them — 120 thousand people — will be Russians. In Samara 110 thousand foreign fans are waiting for the arrival, in Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod – up to 200 thousand fans (from Russia and other countries), in Saransk – up to 90 thousand foreigners.

What is the expected hotels occupancy:

On the days of matches, the hotels will be 100% loaded. There is no accurate information about the number of foreign fans who have arrived in Russia yet. This data is collected by the border service, which has not yet released it.

Tour operators expect that the main flow of fans will come the day before match. Accordingly, within two days (the day before and on the day of match), the load of hotels in Russian cities will reach 90-100%.

In the days between matches, the load of hotels in Moscow and St. Petersburg can reach 80%. In other cities, much lower - about 30-70% (depending on the tourist attractiveness of the city and room fund). The difference is explained by the fact that in the periods between matches Russian hotels will also accommodate foreign tourists who mostly visit only Moscow and St. Petersburg.

According to the www.atorus.ru website