Author: VK
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree uniting special economic zones of one or several types into clusters and allowing managing companies to administer them, the Kremlin’s press service said on Saturday. Residents of special economic zones will be free from taxes for income, property and part of insurance payments. Moscow hopes that this will stimulate tourism in Russia. This concerns the tourism cluster in the North Caucasian Federal District and the Southern Federal District where world-class resorts will be built.
At the same time, Russian resorts cannot offer the same prices and quality as foreign ones. Deputy Director General of Solvex Travel, Lyudmila Sysoykina, said that a season of using a hotel on the Black Sea coast (with full occupation) is a lot shorter than that in Turkey or other traditional tourism states. Turkish hotels have no heating, the Russian hotels need diesels with special fuel in case a power cut should occur and reserve down holes.
Our health centers face a hard tax and red tape burden. Owners of Russian health centers must give social guarantees to their staff. Mentality and professional skills of staff on the Black Sea coast is still a problem. Although the local people are not operating they still get paid. This is a very costly aspect.
The prime cost is tricky. The marginal different of our health centers hardly lets them make both ends meet and survive through the year.
It would be right to view development of Russia’s inner tourism with account of tourism in CIS states. Figures change – people who would not, for instance, travel through Russia off-road and would visit Belarus instead.
The All-Russian Center for Studies of Public Opinion says that there are about 31-32 million citizens travelling through Russia. I have said on many occasions that thus is not stability, it is more of stagnation. When a workmate of mine says we have an increase of visitors in Anapa, Sochi, Gelendzhik, this does not show tendencies on the market. This demonstrates successful campaigns, efforts put in and achieved results.
Maybe we are not satisfied with a growth rate of 15-20%, compared with 30-40% in the previous years. Our corporate statistics does not in any way reflect tendencies on the market in general. This may concern neighbor states the same way. I believe our statistics reflect the situation relatively impartially.
Let us look at the tendencies peculiar for the Russian market and markets of CIS states. One of the most significant tendencies is that our citizens have realized that health improvement is a lot more pleasant and cheaper than treatment. This is why we see have a much greater demand for curative tourism in the last years and months. Interest in sanatoriums of Russia has doubled, compared with the previous year. This includes the Black Sea coast which has finally become a beach destination.
“A substantial part of people preferring vacation in Russia uses sanatoriums and travels through Russia with interest in historic sites, enjoys the beauty of nature and landscape. The number of Russians interested in different types of tourism does not grow but there is still certain dislocation. As mentioned, sanatorium recreation is having a spree and which doubled, compared with the previous year. Inter-season has increased demand. This does not only concern the Kavkazskiye Mineralniye Vody, where the most intense season is in October-November. We are talking about Anapa, Sochi in November and December where people undergo treatment. But most people still prefer Belarus. They built a great number of new advanced health centers. The prices are a lot more attractive, compared with Russian Black Sea resorts. This explains the outflow of a certain number of tourists preferring the Black Sea coast, but this time not only from Russia, but from Abkhazia. We have recently returned from an international business forum, the prospects for development of Abkhazia and Abkhaz-Russian cooperation, in terms of development of Abkhaz resorts, are superb”, Lyudmila Sysoykina says.
