By Vestnik Kavkaza
The modern tourist industry offers a huge variety of foreign and Russian destinations. The Caucasus has always been one of attractive regions for Russian tourists, due to beautiful nature, mild climate, unique cultural legacy and other factors. lya Umansky, the vice president of the ATOR, speaks about favorable and non-favorable aspects of development of tourism in the region.
Umansky says that the demand for the South Caucasus resorts is growing: “The directions are at a stage of development of the tourist flow. It is not big at the moment. However, countries differ from each other and should be considered separately. Let’s start with troublesome Georgia. It has problems with tourist flow, the number of tourists, and transportation of tourists. The key problem is transport. At the moment it is very difficult and expensive to get there from Russia. The number of Russians who want to visit Georgia is significant. We can see a demand, but unfortunately, when we try to find the best option of getting there for our tourists, the price is too high. That’s why the number of tourists from Ukraine is much bigger than the number of tourists from Russia in Georgia. There are almost no Russian tourists, only those who live in neighboring regions and can get there by car. As for Armenia, the situation is simpler and more interesting. Russian tourists love the destination. And trying to find a solution to Georgia, we organize such trips that a person goes to Armenia, sees Armenia around, goes to Georgia and returns to Russia through Armenia. The program is hard, considering the transport aspect, but the prices are nice. And more and more tourists choose such trips. Speaking about Azerbaijan, I think the problem of the low tourist flow is Azerbaijan's high prices. There is no problem with transport, but hotels are too expensive. There are almost no economy class hotels in Azerbaijan, only 4-5-star complexes which are rather expensive. At the same time, the destination is being developed. It got a serious impetus after hosting Eurovision. People got know Baku, a region which is attractive and interesting for many people. People want to visit the country and choose this direction. Unfortunately, the inflow is not big. Speaking about the three countries in general, they are developing in the sphere. I think in the near future they will receive their tourists. People will choose the destinations. The only thing is solving price problems – availability of transport tickets or accommodation, regarding Baku.”
Speaking about resorts of the North Caucasus, Umansky noted that “the demand is not big. The first reason is stereotypes. Even though the situation has changed in recent years, people still remember the events which took place in the region. In fact, the process of breaking the negative image and stereotypes will take a lot of time. Tourism is closely connected to security. When people choose a resort, they don’t want risk, except for special tourist destinations. However, development of these resort destinations and ski resorts is absolutely the right path, as otherwise it would be impossible to destroy the stereotypes; it will only grow in people’s minds and we couldn’t defeat it ever. Of course, at first people from neighboring regions will visit the resorts, but later tourists from other regions will visit them and tell their friends about them. And step by step the situation will change.”
The vice president of the ATOR commented on correlation between price and quality: “The problem concerns not only the North Caucasus. There is a problem of correlation between price and quality in Russian resorts in general. But the key point is not in the product of the resorts, but in ticket prices.”
