The decrease in attendance may be directly related to the configuration of the production calendar. Thus, this year, gambling zones could count on a period of 11 days, and a year earlier, Russians were able to plan a long vacation in the period from April 28 to May 12. Thanks to such distribution of days off, gambling zones, along with other sectors of the tourism market, enjoyed additional demand from guests.
The number of visitors to the Krasnaya Polyana gambling zone was about 30,000 people, which is 17% less than last year. During the past May holidays, the southern gambling zone presented a busy event calendar: a poker tournament, live music evenings and parties with DJs, a concert by Stas Mikhailov, a gastronomic dinner in a fine dining restaurant and raffles with large prize pools.
The Siberian Coin gambling zone recorded 32,069 visits during the past May holidays. This result is a quarter less than last year, but taking into account the smaller number of days off, it still remains successful compared to previous years. Tigre de Cristal Casino in Primorye showed a 54% increase in guests during the past holidays compared to last year, having received 27,295 people.
The smallest difference from year to year was shown by SOBRANIE Casino in Yantarnaya in Kaliningrad. During the same period in May, the gambling enclave was visited by 15,240 guests, which is only 8% less than last May.
AIRIS Executive Director Dmitry Anfinogenov commented on the decrease in the number of guests in the gambling zones: "A slight decrease in attendance is due to the difference in the length of the May holidays: last year, additional days off, transferred from January and November, allowed the tourism industry, including gambling zones, to show record numbers. Nevertheless, if you look at the last 5 years, the general growth trend remains.
More importantly, for gambling zones, the past holidays became a stress test of the infrastructure — hotels, logistics, entertainment — before the summer season. Gambling clusters will continue to expand non-gaming activities in order to maintain leadership in event tourism in their regions. I am sure that in August we will see records updated or, at least, a repeat of last year's summer attendance figures, which amounted to almost 500,000 people." Association "AIRIS"