The city of St. Petersburg is one of the most beautiful in the world, and tourists come from around the globe to see the White Nights, bridges and palaces. But in winter, the city goes into a kind of tourism hibernation, and hotel-occupancy rates barely reach 30 percent between November and April.

When Intourist began promoting White Nights and summer holidays to Petersburg 20 years ago, it didn’t know what consequences this would have for the city today – the hotels and tourism infrastructure in Petersburg cannot handle the number of visitors in summer, while winter offers have a hard time drawing in clients.

The management of the city’s top hotels (the Grand Hotel Europe, Astoria, Angleterre, Corinthia Nevskij Palace and Radisson SAS Royal hotel) decided two years ago to work together to change this huge gap between winter and summer hotel-occupancy rates. This gave rise to the White Days program, which aims to remind the world that Petersburg does not only have White Nights, but also the days of a real Russian winter.

"During the former imperial days, everyone arrived in the city only for the winter," said Natalia Belik, PR director for Corinthia Nevskij Palace. "That was the time when Petersburg was bubbling with life, the most dazzling balls took place, premieres were shown at the theaters, and there were assemblies and fairs. Also, all the traditional Russian activities: Sleigh rides, troikas, skating – these are all winter activities."

Elmar Gref, general manager of the Grand Hotel Europe, remembers that when he "first came to St. Petersburg in the winter of 2000, it was a beautiful sunny day and the whole city was covered in a white blanket of snow. I asked then, ‘Why does everyone talk about the White Nights when the White Days are just as beautiful?’"

At first, only the Grand Hotel Europe was involved in the program. "Later," said Gref, "we were joined by other leading hotels in St. Petersburg. The idea was not just to promote the White Days program, but the city in general. The Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian Museum, Hermitage and Tourism Committee help us with the program.

"Tourists now have a choice of various different packages within the White Days program, and this has helped increase interest in our city."

He added that "White Days is a registered trademark. We have an agreement with tourism agencies that sell our program to use our logo on all printed material."

The hotels, along with the St. Petersburg Tourism Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, set out to attract winter tourists. First of all, they worked with 125 cultural establishments, museums and theaters in the city that could offer cultural events likely to attract visitors during the winter months. This year, the Russian Museum and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra are holding the international Square of the Arts festival for the fifth time from Dec. 28 to Jan. 7.

As always, the Mariinsky Theater is preparing several premieres for the New Year, and, in March, it will hold the Mariinsky ballet festival, which traditionally draws the stars of world ballet. Maestro Yury Temirkanov will present his New Year’s Ball.

Now that the summer holiday season is over, airlines are also coming up with special deals, as it is in their interest to encourage winter tourism. Petersburg hotels will offer cheaper rates for rooms over the winter period.

"One of the main advantages of a winter holiday in St. Petersburg is the cheaper prices offered by hotels," said Belik. "Compared to the summer period, prices drop by half, which we think is a considerable discount, because all five of these hotels aim at people with a higher-than-average income."

The White Days program goes beyond just being another package tour. It is offered by the five best hotels in the city, is valid from Nov. 1 to March 31 and includes three nights’ accommodation, breakfast, a transfer, tickets to the Mariinsky Theater and the Hermitage, lunch in the hotel restaurants and a souvenir. The program aims to promote Petersburg not just as a unique city and a good venue for holding business events and conferences, but also as a place with rich cultural traditions that can offer a variety of entertainment and cultural events.

"The travel agencies working with winter tourists should get their due for coming up with new programs all the time," said Belik. "Thanks to all this, extreme sports are becoming more popular here – for example, things like freestyle – and downhill skiing has become something of a national sport. If visitors want to have a troika ride in a former imperial residence out of town, that is also possible to arrange."

Each hotel offers tourists a choice of packages taking into account various different interests. Yekaterina Zentsova, PR manager at the Astoria, says that the standard three-day White Days package, for example, is turned into a special Christmas package just before New Year, offering visitors all the charms of both Western and Orthodox Christmas in St. Petersburg. Ballet lovers can choose to come during the Mariinsky festival. The Astoria also offers a Hermitage Tour, which includes visits to parts of the Hermitage usually closed to the public. When political activity dies off in St. Petersburg during the winter, it is possible to book the presidential apartments, with a view of the St. Petersburg parliament building, for half price. Some of the pearls of the winter season include visits to a banya and caviar tasting.

The White Days program has already been presented in Britain and Germany. The five Petersburg hotels, joined this year by the Pulkovskaya and Pribaltiiskaya Hotels, presented their common marketing policy to tourism specialists, media representatives and potential visitors.

"But we can’t forget about our own people," Belik said. "We very much hope that Muscovites, who have been visiting Petersburg more often, will come here not just for business, but also for pleasure."

Muscovites had some political motives as well for visiting St. Petersburg during the city’s 300th anniversary, which served to catalyze interest in the White Days program, giving tourism workers a chance to reach guests from all around Russia and other countries.

"The fact that our hotels have become part of major global chains has also helped us to promote our programs," said Belik. "We are even considering inviting several foreign journalists for a weekend in St. Petersburg so that they can see for themselves what the Russian winter is all about and how beautiful the city looks in the snow."

According to Gref, during the 2002-03 season, 440 tourists came to St. Petersburg on the White Days program and stayed at the Grand Hotel Europe.

"Special presentations of the program took place recently at the initiative of participating hotels in London and Munich. More than 40 journalists were present. This shows that our initiative has been a success and that it is popular abroad," he said.

"Tourism agencies wanting to sell our program are gradually joining us. International tourism agencies are selling our program rather than winter packages. We are working on getting more Russian and foreign agencies interested in our program."

The program was presented to Russian journalists, too, at the end of October.

The program has no fixed deadline, and the hotel directors hope that it will help give Petersburg the reputation of a large European city with fine Russian traditions. The first results were already visible in August this year, when the White Nights season is already over but hotel rates were up 22 percent compared to the same time last year, and, in September, the city had just as many tourists as in July.

"These are very good results," Belik said. "We hope that other hotels will join our initiative and that museums and theaters will support us with their proposals."

Today, St. Petersburg has 133-140 hotels with more than 50 rooms catering for people in various income groups. The city hopes to have 11,000 hotel rooms in five years’ time, of which 1,507 will be first class, 8,400 mid-range and 3,500 economy class. The innovations thought up by the top-class hotels can be easily extended to other hotels, and tour operators can work with both individual tourists and groups.

The winter program offers tourists the chance to see Petersburg in a new light, in the frosty light of winter when the canals are frozen and the city is covered with white magic. The hotels in the program have already sent advertising material to all their partners and are awaiting new visitors to the city, which, since its anniversary, is has been looking finer than ever.