The results of the tourist season are usually summed up in late autumn, but the middle of summer is an equator when we can see certain trends. Experts state that the tourist flow inside the country has grown, while interest in the beach resorts of Europe has decreased drastically. Spain, Italy, France and even Greece are too expensive for Russian tourists. “In the first half of the year, outbound tourism fell by 30%. And the domestic tourist flow grew by the same 30%. This year Russia may reach the level of 50 million travellers inside the country,” Alexander Sirchenko, the head of the Department for National Tourist Projects and Security of Rostourism, says.
Meanwhile, according to the Executive Director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, Maya Lomidze, “the season has turned out to be difficult. We had changeable demand in almost all directions: both a rise in demand, and a decline. Certainly, we have directions that suffered in a serious way. I mean Tunisia, because the demand was pretty good, but after the terrorist act the demand halved. However, tour operators are now saying that it has begun to recover. It is apparently linked with a serious drop in prices in this direction. There are similar situations in Greece and Spain. During the season the demand was changeable in almost all directions.”
Lomidze said that the most negative forecasts didn’t come true this season, people travelled abroad. For objective economic and financial reasons the number of tourists is lower than in previous years.
The average reduction in the market is about 25%, a maximum of 35%. It is clear that there are countries that are not on this list. Relatively speaking, Egypt has seen a reduction of 10-15%, Croatia is more than 50% in comparison to last year. These are the extreme points. At the same time, Cyprus is selling at about the same level as last year, Bulgaria is about minus 20%, Turkey is also about minus 20%, but a bit higher than we had expected.
Demand for expensive exotic destinations has decreased. For example, Thailand has been a completely summer direction in recent years, due to the fact that prices fell by half or two-thirds. This year the fall in demand is more than 60% for Thailand.
Despite the fact that the course has significantly changed, the dynamics of prices are not so serious. For comparison: the most economical direction at the moment is certainly Egypt. For example, a week in a 4-star hotel in Hurghada will cost 24-25 thousand rubles a person. The same vacation season in 2014 was about 15-20 thousand rubles. The price difference is small.
The average cost of holiday resorts in the Mediterranean, including Turkey, is about 40-50 thousand per person. Last year it was 30-40 million, the difference is about 10 thousand rubles because of inflation. The exchange rate difference is not that significant.
But we would rather speak in this case about economy and budget tours. Of course, the difference becomes more significant and the average price per a person is 50 thousand rubles.
However, domestic tourism is growing, which completely corresponds to experts' forecasts. Demand for Russian tourism is plus 35-40% in comparison to last year. However, it is tied with seaside resorts. Certainly, there is no such growth in all other regions.
“One of the reasons for successful domestic tourism is that it hasn’t become more expensive in comparison with foreign trips. This is also linked with the currency rate. Although this summer prices increased by 15% in comparison with last year. They say that this is in the range of inflation. However, due to the fact that new travel agencies have appeared, it led to intensified competition among tour operators in the domestic market. We have created new products and set a goal to capture any particular piece in the consumer market. The domestic market has unprecedentedly low prices, starting from 59 rubles a day for accommodation in an apartment-hotel. This is little more expensive than a loaf of bread, to make it clear. The price is not just low, it is extremely low. There have been organized charters, particularly in Crimea. Charters and such unprecedented conditions in respect of the accommodation facilities in general have allowed the prices for domestic products to seriously fall,” Lomidze states.
However, according to her, once we don’t speak about budget tours and not about budget tourism, we discuss the mid-priced segment of tourism. It turns out that, in general, the difference between a foreign and a domestic trip isn’t so significant. The difference may be about 5-7 thousand rubles a person.
