How much of a popular vacation destination would a surviving USSR be in the present day?
The Soviet Union had an active tourism industry in its existence, and had their own state-owned company called Intourist for that purpose. Tourism from westerners was relatively sparse in the '50s, but from what I've read had increased over time. By the '80s it was becoming a much bigger industry in its own right, and the Soviet Union got over 4 million western tourists annually. I heard from people who went that in major cities like Moscow and Leningrad, the people there became quite accustomed to seeing Americans/westerners so their appearance didn't surprise them.
I have wondered what tourism in a surviving USSR, especially one that successfully liberalized to allow for market enterprise, would be like today. There's some factors to consider:
- International travel has gotten a lot cheaper and more accessible since the '80s (the expansion to wider markets actually began in the '80s), so there would be a greater influx of tourists in the Soviet Union by default.
- Tourism in general has become more popular because of it being accessible and the rise of social media, again likely fueling more western trips to the USSR.
- Many apps now exist to aid tourism that didn't exist back then. Things like Google Maps, Uber, Booking, Expedia, Airbnb, Revolut, Citymapper, Trainline etc., so I wonder if the USSR would be compatible with those services or if they would have their own equivalents.
- The USSR has many places they could advertise for tourists: The big two obviously being Moscow and Leningrad, but also consider the Black Sea/Crimea (Sevastopol, Odessa, Sochi etc.), Volgograd (especially geared for WWII buffs), Central Asia (likely an "alternative" destination playing up its Silk Road history), Kaliningrad (especially if it gets restored to look like a German city again), and Vladivostok (marketed towards Asia tourism especially.
There's a lot of factors at play, like if the surviving USSR successfully liberalizes to include some private industry, and if Cold War tensions get relaxed enough for more people to want to go (though tourism did pick up in the USSR even as tensions were high in the '80s so make of that what you will).
How do you think tourism in a surviving USSR would compare to the tourism of the post-Soviet states (Russia in particular) in OTL?