The head of the Federal Tourism Agency, Oleg Safonov, said that the flow of tourists from Russia abroad will not return to the pre-crisis level. This is primarily due to the increasing popularity of domestic resorts. Professor of the Department of Management and Service at the Institute of Sectoral Management of RANHiGS, Galina Dekhtyar, spoke in an interview to Vestnik Kavkaza about the preferences of Russian tourists according to the results of the summer season.
- What did the current summer season show? To what extent were the Russian resorts ready to compete with the Turkish and Egyptian ones? What are the results of this summer for the resorts of Crimea, Kuban and the Caucasus?
- There are no exact statistics yet, because there is the velvet season ahead, but in general we can say that the Russian resorts hosted quite a large number of tourists. Tourist flows have increased in all the cities of Russia, the volume of travel by water routes and to the cities of the Golden Ring has increased. An increase in the numbers of tourists on excursion routes is marked. However, if today the closed countries have been opened, meaning Turkey and Egypt, usual to everyone, Russians will go there, because the main things at these resorts are sea and sun, which are directly linked to health. With regard to domestic resorts, we are now trying to bring them into the condition to which Russians vacationing abroad are accustomed.
- What are your predictions for the velvet season?
- Many will go to Turkey, because the warm period lasts longer there, till November, and it is possible to swim there: the weather will not spoil the vacation. Another option for holidays abroad are the United Arab Emirates, which serve as a substitute for Egypt. This is warmer and safer place than Tunisia or Morocco, though vacations there are more expansive.
- What, in your opinion, are the prospects for the development of domestic resorts, such as the North Caucasus? What can they offer our tourists in the winter season?
- The areas of the winter holidays in Russia are developing actively now. For example, we can mention the ski resorts of the Altai Territory, the Moscow region, Sochi. The offers of our resorts are pretty serious, not cheap, high-quality, eventually, the local winter resorts, especially those that have been widely advertised on television and on the Internet, were filled.
- Today the first charter flight to Turkey from Sheremetyevo in a long time is scheduled. What do you think about how the launch of charter flights could affect the pricing of the travel agencies?
- We cannot wait for a real cost reduction for the vouchers. We have a precedent, where Israel pays subsidies for its charter flights, but a price decline of the vouchers to Israel is not observed. Such a situation may arise in Turkey: what is offered today by the Turkish government on charter flights will also be taken into account, but only by the travel agencies that have lost a lot in terms of money.
