The crisis in the Russian tourism industry is ending, and in 2010 the industry will show growth of 10-12%, announced Transaero President Aleksandr Pleshakov at the Tourism Business conference.
“My forecast is generally positive. At the moment we can see a clear end to the decline in the volume of tourism services. And the fall in the cost of air travel that happened this year, of about 25-40%, will provide additional opportunities for growth in the tourism market in the near future,” said Mr Pleshakov. According to him, market growth will be about 10-12% in 2010. At the same time, the price increases for tourism services predicted by the expert will, undoubtedly, affect operators’ revenues, which will require more effective sales management. Next year, travel agents will start to advertise more actively, which they all but stopped in order to save money.
Mr Pleshakov highlighted a number of problems in the tourism market: “Firstly, the fall in prices, which played a positive role in increasing customers, but decreased revenue for the whole tourism industry. Secondly, the reduced access for a number of tourism companies to significant and cheap financial resources, which limited their ambitions and reduced their profitability, and even led to bankruptcy for some. And thirdly, the intensification of the struggle of tour operators in major regional markets, which led to greater losses,” says Mr Pleshakov. From all this it can be concluded that the main problem of the tourism industry remains the complicated economics of tourism and excessive price competition, which has spread from the Moscow market to the regions. The Transaero president identified the situation in the Egyptian market as another challenge for the Russian travel market. “Tourist travel to Egypt is entirely subsidised by all the market participants, both tour operators and air carriers, but not by the Egyptians themselves. And as the Egyptian market has become a year-round tourist destination for Russia, this has further increased our net losses and exacerbated the situation in the industry. This loss-making destination draws in a large number of tourists from other areas,” said Mr Pleshakov.
At the same time, not counting the loss of GTI-travel, tour operators have, in general, survived the crisis, says the head of Transaero. “In our view, all the major and medium-sized market participants have overcome this difficult period and shown their viability. The strong growth demonstrated by Intourist and Pegas Touristik, and the systemic development of Natali Tours and Coral Travel has forced Tez Tour and Capital Tour to regroup their resources before the next stage of their activities. We are seeing a positive new stage in the activities of the travel company Neva. And ‘second tier’ tour operators, which include Yuzhny Krest, Transaero Tour Centre and Biblio-Globus, have shown strong growth and are trying to move closer to the market leaders,” said Aleksandr Pleshakov.
