Russia will become a new destination for Chinese tourists this fall, yesterday's Youth Post reported.

China and Russia signed a tourism memo early in 2002, and after three-years of preparations, all procedures are ready.

Local travel agencies have already offered business tours to Russia which are proving very popular. Eight-day business tours to Moscow and St. Petersburg and 12-day tours to Russia, Ukraine and White Russia leave from Shanghai every week, with prices ranging from 8,000 yuan (US$964) to 20,000 yuan.

Tour prices to Russia will not fluctuate in the short term after the tour opens to ordinary Chinese tourists as airfares and hotel prices are stable there, said an industry analyst.

Chinese people, especially those born in the 1950s and 1960s, appreciate Russian culture, said Wu Derong, manager with the outbound department of Shanghai China Youth Travel Service Tour Corporation.

At present, 672 Chinese travel agencies are allowed to organize package tours to Russia.

Last year, nearly 810,000 Chinese people traveled to Russia, a figure up 22.4 percent from a year earlier, and the number is expected to reach one million by 2006.

(Shanghai daily June 21, 2005)