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A BANKO correspondent found out that this year travel market players, which specialize in Greece, would again attempt to launch two Moscow – Alexandropolus charter flights that would of course result in tough competition between the players due to little promotion of the destination on the Russian market and a shortage of hotel base in Evros region.
Sergey Baranovsky, General Director of Labirint Travel Company that consolidates one of the flights, commented on the situation as follows: ‘at the moment we plan to realize one charter flight per week by KD-Avia from the beginning of June till the end of September. We realize the difficulties we might face but we are ready to work hard to promote the region and to increase sales’.
Voyage TK and Olympic Tours intend to launch a weekly flight to Alexandropolus starting from June 3rd by STC Russia. Olympic Tour has promoted the region for a year after the Governor of Evros offered the company to organize a charter flight to the destination instead of Ionia Air.
In general experts consider Evros to be a perspective destination. According to them, previous charters to the region failed due to the wrong sales approach. ‘This year five or six large tour operating companies will offer Evros to their clients. It is important that they work in co-operation with each other sending groups to Evros’, believes Dimitris Teodoridis, General Director of Uni Tours.
Otherwise, the demand for the destination will not be enough to fill two flights and as a consequence one of them will fail. With such development of events experts bank on a charter organized by Olympic Tours and Voyage TK because Olympic Tours has corporate clients from Gasprom who work with pipeline Burgas – Alexandropolus and are therefore interested in.
‘Unfortunately we knew too late about a parallel charter program. However, we do not consider them our competitors, as we are partners regarding other programs. Therefore, we will look for a compromise’, stated Irina Sjishkina, The Head of Greece Department of Voyage TK.
