More than 5 million Russian tourists have visited various countries this summer. More than 2 millions purchased package holidays costing $600-1500 per person. 34% bought package holidays costing $1500 and more. The number of such tourists increased in comparison with the last year by 10-15%. 18% of tourists bought package holidays which were cheaper than $600. The number of people from this category decreased. Last year there were 25% of people who preferred the cheapest package holidays.
The head of the Association of Tourist Operators of Russia, Maya Lomidze, told VK that “this summer the most popular resort of the Caucasus was Caucasian Mineral Waters. Even though, the number of self-organized tourists is as large in the region as the number of organized tourists. However, operators state on the slow growth of interest to these resorts this summer. According to operator’s predictions, winter and the inter-season of this year will be productive for Caucasian Mineral Waters, but it cannot be said about mountain-skiing resorts of the Caucasus region where potential demand is huge, but unfortunately, they are not used in appropriate volumes. The main question which concerns tourists is security, and there is no clear settlement of this problem. Both tourist operators and tourist talk about it. However, the potential demand of any Caucasian resorts, mountain-skiing, ecological, health resorts, is huge.”
The key destination of the summer season is still Turkey. Nevertheless, it is the only destination which showed negative dynamics this year. If all other popular destinations experienced increase by 15-20%, Turkey demonstrated negative reduction. The decrease will be about 1% by the end of the season. However, Turkey stays the obvious leader and doesn’t let any other destination come close to it. At the moment relevant ratings are the following: Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, and Croatia. This is top-6.
The other destination is Thailand which also showed certain reduction, but we won’t consider it something different, as in summer Thailand wasn’t very popular. Exceptions were last year and 2010 due to the riots in Egypt. In general the fact that the demand on Thailand decreased is an expected result.
Greece was one of the calmest directions this year. It is an important aspect for Greece as all recent years its economy was shaken and the operators working with the Greek direction had to survive somehow. This year the situation became stable and the direction showed the 20% growth. It was expected that the Greek growth will take place, but no more than 12-15%. 20% is a serious success determined by the economic situation in this country. Devaluation and price fall happen there. For our tourists it is additional motivation for visiting this country. The same examples we can see at the Spanish market. These two directions have no hot tours. If Greece was sold at the last moment, Spain showed a deep sale level, and the consulship experienced difficulties with a great number of applications from the tourist organizations and individuals. The growth on Spain is about 25%. The only exception at the Spanish market is Mallorca. Mallorca was full of forest fires during the whole summer, and the situation didn’t recover even in August – despite law prices, the demand on Mallorca was very low.
One more stable destination was Croatia. It was sold stably for high prices during the whole year. In comparison with the last year Croatia’s prices increased by 10-15%, but it didn’t stop our tourists. Experts explain this fact by the last visa-free summer for our tourists. Perhaps it was a motivation for many.
In general there were few hot tours in all directions, including Turkey. Despite the fact that prices increased, due to the growth of ticket prices and certain growth within the markets (Greece and Spain are exceptions) – despite this fact demand and offer were balanced. Special offers were rare, only on certain dates. No special offers were for Croatia.
The same is true for Italy, but it wasn’t as stable: Italy was shaken in both senses. I mean earthquakes and economic problems. There were forest fires in Spain, but it didn’t influence the demand. In Italy, however, they played a certain negative role. Despite the fires, operators on Italy report the 25% growth in average. It is an unprecedented case. In previous years the country didn’t show such a growth, as well as other Mediterranean countries.
An interesting situation was in Bulgaria this year: in the early season experts predicted high competition connected with appearance of major players in this direction, but the policy of these new players was rather moderate. There was the growth of demand by 20-22%. The policy of the Bulgarian consulship and the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry played an important role in drawing tourist attention to Bulgaria. Visa formalities were minimal. The most important is possibility to send documents to the consulships by a tourist operator directly.
As for general tendencies, the depth of sales and the depth of booking increased significantly. It is an important aspect, as it shows the level of trust of a consumer to the tourist market and the level of certainty in tomorrow. An average depth of sales was from 14 to 30 days. It is a significant index. 11% booked longer tours. More than two months – the unprecedented figure for our market.
