By Vestnik Kavkaza
Representatives of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia Ilya Umansky and Maya Lomidze speak about changes in tourist flows in recent times.
Ilya Umansky, Director General of ATOR, noted that the number of tourists in Sochi grew 20%, but the majority of hotels which were built for the Olympics stayed empty: “Of course the key destination for our tourists is Krasnodar Territory, the Sochi resorts which stepped up to a new level of development: the traditional Anapa, Gelendzhik, Tuapse. This year the inflow of tourists to Krasnodar Territory grew 20%, speaking about the current statistics. The main growth concerns Sochi. Many new facilities were launched in Sochi before the Olympics. Now they are operating. The demand for Sochi grew 20%. We predict that it will grow 30% by the end of the season. Speaking about prices, an average room costs 2738 rubles for a night in Sochi. This is 6% higher than last year. As for Anapa, the index is 2532 rubles – a growth of 2% in comparison with 2013. Sochi gets a lot of tourists this year, but the new hotels which were built in Imeretinka, the new big modern hotels remain empty. We think the key reason for this is poor preparation for the resort season. Hotels were oriented to the Olympic Games and had no time to develop offers for the resort season. Unfortunately, we can see that Sochi is very popular, but people stay in small hotels, health resort centers, traditional hotels, while new hotel complexes are not in demand.”
There is a positive tendency in the sphere of health tourism in the Caucasus: “A popular destination is the Caucasian Spas, health tourism. The number of tourists is growing, according to our data – by 10%. Room prices grew by 5%.”
Ilya Umansky noted that the number of tourists fell at several traditionally popular tourist destinations. One of them is Crimea: “Hopes for a big demand for Crimea after its merger into Russia didn’t come true. We predict about a 50% reduction in the resort’s occupancy. The key reason for such a drop is the absence of easy transport access.”
The number of tourists in Abkhazia fell as well: “Abkhazia has problems with the tourist inflow due to political instability. Demand for Abkhazia reduced 20%. At the same time room prices grew 8% in comparison with last year. These factors are not connected to each other. Prices grew a bit earlier. At the moment Abkhazian resorts are developing special offers and trying to reduce prices. But unfortunately the price is not the point. Abkhazia has always been a deficit destination, very popular among tourists. But at the moment we have feedback from many tourists, and I think this year the season will fail in this direction.”
As prices grew in Belarus, there is a tendency towards a reduction in tourists there: “Speaking about the other popular destination, Belarus, we can see a stagnation and reduction of demand in this direction, as it has become more expensive. It has always been very popular due to cheap prices. Last year Belarusian resort prices grew 15%. This year we can see that the destination is losing its popularity.”
Maya Lomidze, Executive Director of the ATOR, stated that as a result of threats to launch sanctions against Russia, the number of Russian tourists to Europe decreased. A fear of problems with visas and the attitudes of local populations made Russian citizens choose Turkey and Egypt: “The dreadful word “sanctions” played a big role in tourists’ choice. The demand shifted from European visa destinations to other non-visa destinations, including internal Russian ones. The tendency became clear in the second half of March and early April. It influenced the character of the current season, I mean external tourism. Many Russian tourists thought that “sanctions” were launched against them personally and thought that they could have problems with visas: they wouldn’t be issued a visa or provocations could occur in a foreign country. We had to dispel these silly illusions so many times. We received a lot of such telephone calls. Moreover, the exchange rate grew seriously. Euro became very expensive. Demand decreased. According to our preliminary data, demand for such popular destinations as Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Spain fell 15-25%. And we can see the situation right now, I mean in summer the tourist inflow into these countries is lower than we have predicted. Non-visa mass destinations have benefited from the situation – Turkey and Egypt. If all other foreign destinations demonstrate a fall, we could see growth in the Turkish and Egyptian directions. The fact that these countries are visa-free for our citizens makes them choose these destinations. Moreover, these countries present their prices in dollars, so they were not so dreadful for Russians, while 1000 euros means 50 thousand rubles; for example, a trip to Turkey for 35 thousand rubles is considered to be available for our tourists. So Turkey is very popular. The growth is preliminarily 3-5%. Considering the general recession, this is a serious result. As for Egypt, we can see no growth and no reduction.”
