St. Petersburg broke its all-time record in 2025: 12.4 million tourist trips — up 7% on 2024 and 19% above pre-pandemic 2019. Russians supply 93% of the flow; the foreign table is led by China, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and India.
Governor Beglov’s office closed 2025 with 12.4 million tourist trips to the city — 7% above 2024’s 11.6 million and 19% above the pre-pandemic 2019 benchmark of 10.5 million. Tourist satisfaction stands at 86%, among the highest in the country.
The domestic base comes from Moscow, Moscow Region, Tatarstan, Pskov Region and Krasnodar Krai; event travel — the Scarlet Sails, the Light Wonders festival, the SPIEF business season — now drives dedicated trips.
Rosstat counts 717,000 foreign tourist trips to St. Petersburg in January–November 2025 — Russia’s second most-visited destination after Moscow’s 2.3 million. The far-abroad top five: China, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and India; near-abroad is led by Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.
Latin America and the Caribbean grew ~34% in 2025 (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile), though still under 2% of the foreign flow. The visa-free corridors and new air routes are doing the work: foreign tourist inflow via Pulkovo grew 22%.
The May–September window carried about 6 million guests (+7%); inbound foreign arrivals in the summer season reached 400,000, up 10.7%. Business travel — 1.4 million trips, +12% — rides the forum calendar.
Nineteen percent above the pre-pandemic record, with 93% of guests domestic — St. Petersburg has completed the pivot that Moscow only half-made: a world-heritage destination repriced and reprogrammed for its own citizens first, with the Chinese and Gulf corridors rebuilding the foreign layer on top. The record is real; the composition is the story.
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