18:29, 13 July 2016

Sale of tours to Turkey does not make vacations in Southern Russia cheaper

A beach in Sochi. Photo by Svetlana Kravchenko for the "Caucasian Knot"

The resumption of the sale of tours to Turkey has not had enough time to affect the tourist season in Southern Russia, since rooms in the resort hotels have already been booked or bought. This was reported by workers of tourist sphere.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on June 30, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lifting the restriction on the sale of tours to Turkey. After that, a boom in sales of tours to Turkey occurred, the "Kommersant" reports.

In 2015, residents and guests of Sochi complained that the conditions for the rest failed to comply with the resort status.

According to Ilya Umansky, Vice-President of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (known as ATOR), General Director of the national tour operator "Alean", Abkhazia also remains in demand. However, the expert believes that in the future, the resumption of tourist traffic to Turkey will return the volumes of tourists who prefer to stay in Russia and Abkhazia to the lower level of 2015.

Furthermore, according to Ilya Umansky, the tourist sphere did not benefit from the increased attention of Russian citizens to the local resorts, since there is no competition at the market.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.

Author: Oleg Krasnov

Source: CK correspondent