July 2002


Increased confidence and interest in the Russian and CIS market.

The Russian market is going through an exciting period of development toward a market economy, where the opportunities for new business are wide and varied.

In the travel & tourism business, Russia and the CIS countries have more and more to offer the world in terms of both inbound and outbound tourism. Russia has been significantly developing its infrastructure over the past decade and the benefits are being reaped as inbound tourism figures continue to rise, with some 21 million tourists and business travellers visiting in 2000.

Russia is of enormous importance on the world wide outbound market, with over 18 million Russians travelling abroad each year destinations around the world are keen to attract Russian visitors. Indicators show that over the past months whilst many countries noticed a decrease in outbound tourism, Russia and CIS countries' outbound markets were hardly affected. In fact due to the decrease in costs of international travel, overseas travel has become an even more appealing holiday option for many in this region.

Destinations around the world understand the significance of the Russian market and for this reason ITE Travel Exhibitions' flagship event MITT (Moscow International Travel & Tourism exhibition), which takes place annually is such an important forum for the travel industry. It provides an ideal gateway to the Russian and CIS market and annually welcomes some 2,000 of the top names in the international travel industry from over 100 destinations and has a visitor audience of over 100,000.

The potential of Russia and the CIS is too encouraging to ignore and investors and businessmen are converging at the shows to ensure that they take part in this exciting time of development.

MITT2003 will take place 26-29 March 2003 at the Krasnaya Presnya Expocentr, Moscow

For further information, please contact:
Alison Colley, Marketing Executive,105 Salusbury Road, London NW6 6RG,UK

ITE Travel Exhibitions, ITE Group Plc
Tel: +44 20 7596 5000 Fax: +44 20 7596 5102/5111
[email protected]