Market News

Closure  of the VKO brand
TUI Russia & CIS announced the conclusion of its consolidation process and has decided to keep only 2 brands: TUI and Mostravel. The third brand, VKO Travel, that was previously a part of TUI Russia as well, will cease to exist as a stand alone brand. Its former Directors, Ellada and Kirill Peskov, are leaving the company. Mostravel and TUI will offer two different kinds of products, with TUI focusing on the more up-market segment, offering 4* and 5* hotels in Egypt and Turkey, as well as skiing and excursion in Europe and FIT travel. Mostravel will focus on the middle class segment offering package tours in 2* - 3* hotels. TUI will continue to expand its retail chain in Russia with plans to open 150 more TUI branded shops in 2012 and 200 Mostravel branded ones.

Inna Tour Changes Focus
Previously one of the Top 10 Russian tour operators, Inna Tour, has decided to give up its allotments with Aeroflot for the winter season. Experts believe that the new owners of the company are not aiming to compete with the marker leaders, as they did previously but will focus on the low risk FIT and corporate business, as well as ticketing. A similar decision was made by Megapolus Tours earlier this year, who dropped all their charters to focus on the more higher profit, FIT segment.

Pegas Touristik will be the first Russian tour operator to open its own incoming office in Hainan, China. Pegas has been working in this market for 2 years ago and focuses on Hainan (island) rather than mainland China. For the 2011-2012 winter season, Pegas will run charters to Hainan from 12 Russian cities. In 2010, over 100,000 Russians visited Hainan, figures for 2011 are expected to increase.

Other new charter destinations for Pegas in SE Asia this winter is the Niachang resort in Vietnam.  Pegas will run charters from Vladivostok, Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk and Surgut to Vietnam.

Tez Tour and Russian Express announced their expansion of SE Asia, especially Thailand. Tez Tour will run flights to Bangkok from Tyumen, Surgut, Omsk and Kemerovo in Siberia. These flights will be operated by Tez Tours own airline 'I Fly'. Tez Tour will continue its flights out of Novosibirsk to Bangkok and Phuket also using its I Fly airline. On the other hand, Russian Express will start offering Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam to its clients this winter, new destinations for this TO. Lanta Tour also announced that Thailand and Vietnam will be their key winter destinations this year with growth plans of  20-25% per year.

Cyprus received 51,000 Russian guests in August 2011, which is a 50% increase on the same month of last year. A total of 238,000 Russians travelled to Cyprus from Jan-Aug 2011, which is 127% increase on 2009 figures. This makes Russia the 2nd largest source market for Cyprus after the UK, the 3rd being Germany.

European Countries open more Visa Centres across Russia. In attempt to make Europe more accessible to Russians in the regions, a large no of Visa centres have opened in Russia which is  operated by VFS Global, who work with many of the EU countries. Austria has recently expanded its presence and it is now possible to obtain Austrian visas in the following regional cities of Russia: Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Samara and Rostov-on-Don. 300,000 Russians are expected to visit Austria by the end of 2011, which will be a 30%.

Hong Kong received almost 60% more Russian visitors during January – August 2011 of 77,000 visitors. Russia is now the 2nd fastest growing market for Hong Kong after Indonesia. According to the local NTO, the average age of Russian visitors to HK is 35 years old, they tend to be business owners and they often go to Hong Kong for business, especially attending trade exhibitions. Leisure tourists from Russia tend to combine visiting Hong Kong with sightseeing and shopping with beach holidays at Hainan in China.