11/08/2019 16:47

An expensive demand

[IMG=18599-4174] The increase of fuel collection was reported by operators of the Scandinavian destination – prices for New Year's tours to Norway, Sweden and Iceland increased by 25 Euro. Yet, the constantly grow of prices of POL is a routine phenomena for all tourist destinations and does not influence the popularity of Scandinavian countries among Russian holiday-makers. ‘We fix the growing of the sale at a rate of 30%, says Valentina Evforitskaya, general director of ‘Jazz-tour’. At the same time is Norway is picking up steam every year, while Finland, for example, re-establish positions lost two years ago.’ The high interest to winter Scandinavian is confirmed by the dynamics of air transportation. Tour operators interviewed by BANKO noted that the majority of tour packages were based on regular flights but in the coming season several charter programs were announced for Norway, Switzerland and still exotic Iceland. For example, DSBW and Jazz-tours operators consolidate the chain of three flights to the Norwegian Fagernes. ‘Earlier it was always possible to fill the charters to the Scandinavian destination, and client were sent by regular flights. It is especially concerns Norway and Iceland,’ says Mrs. Evforitskaya. Other market participants speak of increase of their volumes: ‘We have increased capacities, substituting Tu-154 (150 seats) by Boeing 767 (220 seats) for charter program to Sweden and Norway’, says Kirill Zimogorskiy, head of Information department of ‘PAC Group’. – ‘As for Finland, all program were sold with good depth of sales beforehand and there was an increased number of tourist’. At the same time, ski mountain Scandinavia can not yet boast about an impressive share on the market. ‘Norway is popular with advanced mountains skiers’, believes Victoria Zhenchevskaya, head of Scandinavian department at DSBW. – ‘The countries are not particularly cheap: the price for packages is from 700 Euro with charter programs and from 1000 with regular flights. As another curious particularity of the season, operators name the shift of the demand from New Year's dates to Christmas vacations.