Feature

Ski Market

Preparing for the winter season, Russian tour operators specializing in ski tours, expect a 20%-30% increase this winter and a return the pre-crisis figures of 2008. Among the main players in the Russian ski market are the following companies: PAC Group, Ascent Travel, Jet Travel, and Erzog. The main destinations for PAC Group, for 2010-2011 winter seasonare: Salzburg, Innsbruck, Chamberi, Verona, Turin and Bergamo, using their own charters flights or reserving blocs on regular flights. They aim to expand their winter offers from Moscow, to the following regional cities including: Krasnodar, Ekaterinburg, Kazan and Samara.

Ascent will focus on ski resorts in France, Austria, Italy and Andorra, by offering packages to Chamberi, Innsbruck, Munich. They will also start charter flights from Ekaterinburg to Salzburg and Verona. And due to the merger with Rostravel, there will a number of new programs to ski resorts of Finland, Sweden and Norway.

Jet Travel will offer: Innsbruck, Munich, Verona, Turin, Bergamo, Geneva and Zurich. Chamberi and Grenoble will be the main destinations in France. They plan charter flights from the Russian regions:
St-Petersburg to Zurich, Munich and Bergamo
Ekaterinburg to Zurich, from Ufa to Munich
Nizhny Novgorod to Turin
Rostov-on-Don to Munich and Turin.

Natalie Tours, a large tour operator traditionally focused on Andorra and Spain, expect up to a 30% increase in volume to Andorra and a 15% increase to Spain (Sierra Nevada). Natalie also plans to send 20% more clients to Verona.

Lanta Tour has just started to market Spain and Andorra as winter destinations this year.

Tez Tour, also a relatively newcomer to the ski market, will focus on Salzburg and Andorra.