11/08/2019 16:42

Inbound goes ahead outbound

[IMG=18756-4375] Ekaterina Kapitonenko, a ‘BANKO’ correspondent investigated the situation with regional travel agencies a few days before New Year. It was found out that tours along Russia were extremely popular in the regions. Practically all companies dealing with in-country tourism pointed out the increase in demand for their travel programs in comparison with the previous year. ‘All programs were sold out by the end of November. Las year New Year offers were on sale till the middle of December’, said Alexander Maksimov, director of ‘Vladimir tour’. ‘Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Suzdal are very popular destinations this winter. If we had more hotel rooms we could sell even more tours’, agreed Nikolai Plotnikov, executive director of ‘Vladinvesttour’. Even quite expensive prices did not influence the demand. On average, a 3-day tour in Vladimir including New Year party costs 11 000-12000 rubles. Traditional New Year tours to Velikiy Ustyug, homeland of Father Frost also won popularity. As for outbound tourism, experts have noticed quite high demand for Thailand. Oleg Timokhin from Novosibirsk company ‘Grand Tour’ said that at the moment it is possible to book only for February – all January tours have already been sold, while the Maldives and the Philippines are not that popular. This year charter flights were organized to Egypt from Samara but the demand for this destination is unexpectedly low. According to Tamara Smirnova, director of ‘DVS Tour’, there are special offers even for high period dates.