Intourist (Russian: Интурист, a contraction of иностранный турист, "foreign tourist") was a Russian tour operator, headquartered in Moscow. It was founded on April 12, 1929, and served as the primary travel agency for foreign tourists in the Soviet Union. It was privatized in 1992 and from 2011, was 50.1% owned by the British Thomas Cook Group until its collapse in September 2019. In November 2019, Anex Tours acquired the stake from the British Official Receiver. Although the Soviet Union was not enamored of competition, Intourist did have competition in the form of Intourbureau and the Soviet Central Council of Tourism and Excursions. The New York Times described this competition as "tiptoed onto Intourist's turf." Quaker-founded Goodwill Holidays helped sell Intourbureau's competing offerings, which included use of hotels owned by the Soviet Central Council of Tourism and Excursions. They were the competition to Intourist's hotels that were staffed by employees described by an American tourist as being "as friendly as wardens at the state pen." More information...
According to PR-model, intourist.com is ranked 449,642nd in multilingual Wikipedia, in particular this website is ranked 253,895th in English Wikipedia.
The website is placed before svh24.de and after oskaloosa.com in the BestRef global ranking of the most important sources of Wikipedia.
