Turkey is not threatened by European competition

Early booking programs for Turkey started in the beginning of December 2012, and almost immediately showed good results. The increase in early booking sales is estimated to be 20-25%, compared to last year’s numbers. This is good news for market players, yet there are some limitations. The latest increase in prices for Turkey, which happened in early 2013, resembles the events of last summer, when many Russian tourists switched to European resorts due to lower prices.

Mind, that the end of 2012 was marked by some unexpected data: most major operators announced an increase in Turkey sales, yet the official statistics for the first time showed a small decrease in Russian tourist flow on this destination. During 11 months of 2012, the increase amounted to a mere 4%, whereas the same period of 2011 showed a positive dynamic of 12%. So experts started talking about stagnation of the destination. Some of them even said that Turkey may be risking its popularity on the Russian market.

Alexander Sinigibsky, General Representative of TEZ Tour, has voiced this opinion in an interview to a Turkish newspaper Turizm Guncele. According to him, the main problem is the rise of dollar prices. The average tour package went up in price by 10%. At the same time European hotels had to lower their prices due to the economic crisis in the Eurozone, which, of course, appealed to Russian tourists. Current prices can really finish off Turkey. “Yet another rise in tariffs is very surprising. It was absolutely clear last year that the price tag has reached its all-time maximum. Mass tourists are used to Turkey being an affordable destination. So it’s no wonder that early bookings of Spain are going better than those of Turkey”, explained Eugenia Fyodorova, the company’s PR-Manager.

On the other hand, Business Manager of TEZ Tour, Alexander Burtin, believes that the current situation on the exchange market is beneficial to Turkey: “Prices in euros have gone higher up than prices in dollars. Thus European resorts are becoming more expensive much faster than Turkish ones. That gives Turkey a chance to win back their share of the market during 2013”.

Anna Podgornaya, General Manager of Pegas Touristik, also believes that the current situation with prices poses no threat to the destination. Turkey will stay the most important summer destination due to a simple visa regime and popular AI packages that Russian tourists like so much: “This is not stagnation. There was some reallocation of the tourist flow among other Mediterranean countries like Greece and Spain. Yet Turkey remains the number one destination for Russian tourists”. She also notes that early booking that started in December, are going very well. No particular numbers were given, yet the expert says that early bookings of the destination are becoming more and more popular with each year, even though some evil tongues might say otherwise. The first early booking at Anex Tour was for May holidays, and the overall depth of sales goes as far as October. “Last year we noted a 30% increase in sales. Mostly it was due to active work in the regions and expansion of our flight geography”, said Mrs. Fyodorova.

Vice General Manager of the Moscow Office of Neva company, Svetlana Drozdova, thinks that it’s way too early to file Turkey away. “Some of us might want the Turkey-bound flow to reallocate to European countries. But I wouldn’t count on that. The level of service and entertainment that Turkish resorts provide to Russian tourists simply can’t be matched at this moment”, - she said in an interview to RATA-news. And even though Turkey’s popularity is slowly decreasing, it’s not sufficient, if you take into account the multi-million overall tourist flow from Russia. “For instance, several thousand tourists that will not go to Croatia in 2013 due to the new visa regime, pose a much bigger problem for tour operators”, noted Mrs. Drozdova. The expert is sure that during this year Turkey will be competing with itself rather than with European countries. There are many equally good resorts on the destination ready to fight each other for clients. This tendency was obvious throughout the previous year, and it will probably keep progressing in 2013.

Ms. Podgornaya explained that in 2012 tour operators formed very intelligent flight programs, so there were very little dumping on the market. Travel packages were sold for their real value. At the same time, European resorts had minimal marginality. “I think that this year the situation with prices on Turkey will still be favorable to market players”, Anna Podgornaya concluded. Earlier, the operator promised to increase the amount of Turkish tours as well as expand its flight geography for 2013. Aegean Sea Resorts will be promoted more actively, too.

General Manager of NTK Intourist, Viktor Topolkarev, says that early bookings of Turkey for the summer season will be 20-25% higher, compared to last year’s numbers. But there’s no need to jump to conclusions based only on early bookings. “Every year more tourists prefer to have a reserved room in a hotel they know and like. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the increase of the overall tourist flow. Many operators made a mistake last year, forecasting a much larger amount of tourists, based only on their early bookings”, explained Mr. Topolkarev. At the moment, Intourist is optimistic. They plan to expand their flight programs to Turkey from Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Yekaterinburg by 25%. At the same time, Mr. Topolkarev said that is the demand will not be as high as expected, so the flight programs will have to be corrected accordingly.