Tourism: New Year's Eve without the sun

In the context of the financial crisis and devaluation of the ruble, Russians began to cease travelling. The forced rejection of foreign resorts increased the attractiveness of Russian resorts, but according to Maya Lomidze, Executive Director of the Association of Tour Operators, people do not have enough money for a vacation not only abroad (overseas tours became much more expensive due to the fall of the ruble), but for a vacation in the country.

Vacations in the country during the New Year period rose in price on average by 15-18% compared with last year's Christmas holidays. Lomidze says that “it is not a very significant price increase, since the inflation we have is about the same, but nonetheless, it was quite a serious factor for a large number of people, and they decided not to go anywhere for the New Year holidays.”

The dynamics of domestic and outbound tourism were very different from each other. Outbound tourism, in spite of the recovery in some areas, showed a negative trend – minus 30-35% compared to the Christmas holidays in 2015, on average across all the markets.

Domestic tourism, on the other hand, showed positive dynamics, but it was lower than experts expected. “An increase of 20% was expected compared to the Christmas holidays in 2015. Unfortunately, it plus 10%,” Lomidze commented.

For the first time in the modern history of the tourism business Egypt was not the main tourist destination. “The absence of Egypt naturally led to an increase in demand for other more or less alternative foreign directions. Of course, it is primarily the direction of the so-called ‘winter sun’, which are the countries where you can be warmed up by the sun and swim in the sea in winter. They won, so to speak, from the absence of Egypt. Primarily these countries are the Arab Emirates, Israel, Thailand, Vietnam and India, Goa. But even with this revival, the overall dynamics of the outbound market have not changed much,” Lomidze said.