St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko introduced an innovative initiative to attract new tourists in town: 72 hours without a visa for tourists who arrive at the international Pulkovo Airport.

It is expected that with applying the pilot project Petersburg will attract 30 million Europeans per day, each of whom will spend 150 Euros per day, resulting in total revenues amounted to 13.5 million Euros. The National Association of the tourism industry and the Russian ministry of tourism are positive that this project could expand throughout the country.

Sergei Korneev, Deputy Chairman of the National Association of the tourism industry, called the proposal “revolutionary”, explaining that it was “brilliant decision to promote tourism.

Tourists can already stay in St Petersburg for 72 hours without a visa if they come on a cruise and spend the night on their boat. However more than a half of the people visiting St Petersburg arrive by plane. In the first five months of the year at Pulkovo Airport arrived 1.3 million foreign travelers and it’s estimated that by 2014 this figure will reach 17 million.