Croatia’s
popularity this summer coincided with the expectations of travel agents. As
predicted, Russian citizens were quick to take up the last opportunity to
holiday in a “visa-free” country. We’d like to remind you that Croatia will
become a part of the European Union in summer next year, which will require the
introduction of the “Schengen Agreement”. A growth in 20-22% to this
destination was witnessed during the current season. At the same time, in
general, travel agents managed to avoid selling tours on special offers.
“Sales to Croatia are going quite well on the
entire market – we’re witnessing an increase at the 20% mark. The depths of
sales is equally as good, and as a result of this it was decided to prolong our
flight program from the regions up until the end of September”, - reported the
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the “Ascent-Travel” Company Boris
Burikin.
The high demand for Croatia is also
confirmed by other players on the market. “This season is much better than the
previous one, in regards to sales, the increase is there, and it’s quite
significant”, - pointed out the Deputy Director of the “parks” Company Natalia
Ivanova. She reminded that the summer of 2011 turned out to be financially
disastrous for “Croatian” travel agents. Because the transportation supply
exceeded demand, and this goes for regular as well as chartered flights, it
wasn’t uncommon for tours to Croatia
to be sold for a “hot” price. “This year the market took last year’s negative
experience into consideration, there were less empty spaces and this had an
effect on the profitability of the destination straight away”, - explained Ms
Ivanova.
“There are only singular cases of special
offers on the market, and in general all of the standard programs are fully
packed”, - said the head of the sales department of the “Megapolis Tours”
Company, Elena Sadikova. From the words of the RATA-news companion, the
increase in demand is spread out across different destinations in the following
manner: Dubrovnik has increased in 20%, Split –
10%, Istria remained on the same level as in
the previous year. “Perhaps Istria is the only
one which has kind of sizzled down this year. This is all because the amount of
flight there were basically not decreased this year”, - advised the travel
agency representative.
At the same time, according to the words of
Ms Sadikova, currently, in August, they’re witnessing a very common situation
for Croatia
in regards to hotels, when most of the come to a sort of “stop”. In this case
the travel agent can sell tours, only when they have a guaranteed room. What is
more, the situation with hotels remains quite tense even in September. By the
way, there was practically no deficit with accommodation during last season,
because Europeans were not all that keen to travel to Croatia, and
this freed up some of the available accommodation. In turn Boris Burikin turned
his attention on the tendency to shift peak dates to July and September when
travel packages cost significantly less. August, according to his words, is
booked pretty much just a week before the start of the tour.
“The current situation in Croatia looks a lot like what happened in Bulgaria. In
summer, before the introduction of Schengen visas there was a burst of
interest. However already during the next year, the tour flow dropped in nearly
a quarter. I think that this kind of situation will repeat in Croatia in the
summer of 2013”,
- suggested Genadyi Kosirev, the Deputy Director of the “Russian Express”
Compnay. The expert has also noticed that the decrease of the tour flow will
wholly depend on the loyalty of the Croatian visa services to Russians. In the
current season, according to the words of Mr Kosirev, sales are 22 % higher
when compared to the previous year.
“Considering the fact that we still have August and September to go, I
think that the final figures will exceed last year’s result by a quarter, on
average”, - he estimated.
