The first BRICS Tourism Forum , held in Moscow brought together over 600 leading experts and business and government representatives from the BRICS countries. A major part of the forum was the signing of 12 commercial agreements by representatives of the tourism business sector and the creation of the BRICS Tourism Cities Club. The meeting was also created to help develop practical actions, with participation from all 9 member countries.
The initiative to create this platform was first put forward by South Africa in 2018 and finally created under the Russian presidency in BRICS this year. IOL Business was invited to the forum where the main priority or strategy of the event was to attract tourism to Moscow. The government hopes to establish long-lasting ties with South Africa and hopes to make it easier for South Africans to visit Russia and in particular Moscow.
Over 24 million people visited Moscow in 2023 according to Evgeny Kozlov, the chairman of Moscow City Tourism Committee. But this is not enough and he told IOL that the Russian government want to double this by 2030 with the help of South Africa and other BRICS nations. “We need to establish a new or deeper connection with local business and federal government to promote tourism in Moscow.
There is a huge drive to bring in BRICS nations to Moscow and intra-BRICS cooperation with these nations is vital,” Kozlov said. “In the first quarter of 2024, our capital has already been visited by 129,000 guests from BRICS.
