Demand for Russia in May is still to come to the fore

We continue to study the preferences forMay holidays among Russians. It will be recalled that this week online booking service systems named the tentative list of the most destinations for the May holidays. According to Aviasales.ru Russian cities as St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Sochi and Mineralnye Vody are not on the list and gave way to Paris, Barcelona, Prague, Tel-Aviv and Rome. From all the Russian cities St. Petersburg was the only one included in the list of the online hotel booking service Oktogo.ru. Thought inner market tour operators are not surprised.

According to the Director General of the Dolphin Company Sergey Romashkin, such choice in favor of foreign countries means there's yet a slow reaction on inner demand. “Russians are still buying tours for March holidays and Maslenitsa festival. And May holidays will be actively sold by the beginning of April”, – he explained. The reason for hibernation is the lack of visa problems and transport accessibility of the most destinations. Never the less, players of the market are ready to reveal some tendencies of the coming season.

«For now there's a shift to passive time-spending and excursions are slightly booked”, – said the Deputy Director General of Solveks Travel Company Ludmila Sysoykina. According to her Krasnodar region, Abkhazia, Belarus and Ukraine are leading the demand. And most of the tourists decided to extend their holidays using days off and unused vacation days – generally trips are booked for 10-14 days. Moscow's places of interest seem to be the only ones that are interesting for tourists yet. Though, according to her, in general short trips to close by destinations are almost not interesting to tour operators: tourists prefer to travel by their own cars and to act on their own. “Now it's more of a B2C format”, – concluded Ludmila Sysoykina.

Sergey Romashkin supposes that the list of this year's May leaders will barely change. Moscow suburbs, the Golden Ring, St. Petersburg and Kiev will still be on top. Krasnodar region, Crimea and Abkhazia will remain leaders among the beach destinations.

In 2012 tour operators were almost denied the opportunity of extended May holidays. Due to the fact that vacation days were added in the last minute, a lot of travel agencies didn't have time to form extended packages. This year Russians have an opportunity to prepare to May holidays both financially and morally. Director General of the Alean Company Ilya Umansky made it clear that he is expecting sales for the May holidays to double if compared to the previous year. The shift in demand is good grounds for optimism: the demand for Moscow region, Crimea, Krasnodar region and Belorussia is already growing. Though, according to the expert, in nominal terms the numbers are not that good to speak about a hundred percent of success.

May holidays yet are not in its peak sales times, prices remain on the mid-season level yet. If compared to the previous year, the price of a tour package has increased by more than 5%. According to the experts the price can increase more only if there's a special animation program, but more likely they will be available no sooner than in April.

We can't say that the entire domestic market regards May holidays with great piety. Astravel Travel Company believes a miracle is not to be expected from the spring holidays. “For a long time people were deprived of long May vacations and fell out of habit of planning trips for the period”, – believes Company's Deputy Director Alexandr Belousov. He didn't exclude pessimistic development when most of Russians will rest on their own beds instead of traveling. Assuming that the weather is fine, of course.

Today tourists more actively ask for summer trips inside the country. Many tour operators noticed this feature. According to Sergey Romashkin, on the shares of early booking Moscow region increased only by 15% and the Crimea leaped immediately by 50%. “Possibly it might be due to the fact that local hoteliers offered good discounts”, – he concluded.