The airport and ports operators at Russia’s Baltic Sea city, St Petersburg, have agreed to collaborate in order to drive tourist arrivals by extending a visa-free system for short stays.

Pulkovo Airport (LED), run by Northern Capital Gateway [in which Fraport has a stake], and Marine Façade, the marine terminal operator at the passenger port of Saint Petersburg, are joining forces to enhance Russia’s second biggest city’s appeal as a tourist centre.

They are working with state agencies of the Russian Federation and the city’s public authorities “to enable favourable conditions for tourism development, increase sea and air passenger traffic, and attract tourist flows into the city”, says LED.

In concrete terms that means mitigating visa requirements and easing rules for foreign citizens arriving in Saint Petersburg by sea and air. Both parties are planning for a 72-hour visa-free stay in Saint Petersburg for visitors arriving by aircraft and leaving on cruise ships or ferries, and vice versa.

Currently this facility exists only for passengers on certain cruise services to the city’s seven-berth port [which has three cruise terminals and one combined cruise-ferry terminal]. Other areas of cooperation include media partnership, sharing experience, joint participation at congresses, exhibitions and cultural and community events.

THE VISION… AND THE REALITY

Northern Capital Gateway CEO, Vladimir Yakushev, comments: “NCG is constantly increasing the airport route network and connecting Saint Petersburg directly with new cities worldwide. Marine Façade offers excellent opportunities for travelling through the Baltic Sea region and is intensifying its efforts to ramp up inbound cruise tourism. We expect our combined efforts to enhance development of the city’s transport system and its tourist potential.”

The reality for LED, however, is that it saw a traffic downturn in 2015 to 13.4m pax after steady increases from 2009, with destinations also clipped from a 2013 high of 164, to 151 in 2015. Furthermore, while Russian pax continue to rise, international traffic is heavily down from 7.1m in 2014 to 5.6m in 2015. Despite that, LED managed to increase its revenue in 2015 to RUB14bn/$225.3m, of which non-aviation revenue increased its share to 24% from 21% a year earlier. Nuance (Dufry) is the main duty free and travel retail concessionaire at LED.