Only three days were required after President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin signed the decree to lift the ban on the sale of tours to Turkey, for a boom in tours to take place, since the country was already very familiar to Russians, according to vestnikkavkaza.net.
At present, the number of inhabitants of the Russian Federation who have requested travel companies about holidaying in this country is about ten times higher than the number of actual offers, the executive director of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), Maya Lomidze, said.
‘’Representatives of the travel agencies say that after the abolition of the restrictions in the field of tourism in relation to Turkey, their phones have revived. The number of calls from citizens who are interested in this direction is now about ten times higher than the number of offers available to the tour operators,’’ RIA News quotes her as saying.
Nevertheless, the ATOR executive director noted that not many people are actually buying tours to Turkey. “The fact is that people have not yet received the security guarantees and the cost of tour packages with scheduled air services remains quite high,” Lomidze said.
Skyrocketing popularity
Turkey’s skyrocketing popularity is demonstrated by the data service Yandex.
Within three days, from June 29th to July 1st, the number of requests for tours to Turkey has quadrupled, representatives of ‘Yandex’ stated. The number of requests for Turkey is three times higher than the demands of all the main Russian resorts put together.
Trips have increased from 200 to more than 500. Last summer, before the ban on the sale of tours to Turkey, there were about a thousand, RBC reports.
Prices for holidays in Turkey are higher than in the Russian resorts: a tour for two in Turkey for seven nights could be purchased from 40 thousand rubles. A similar holiday to Crimea would cost 35 thousand rubles and in Sochi 37 thousand rubles.
The ban on the sale of package tours to Turkey was established last November after the Turkish military shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber near the Syrian-Turkish border. As a result, since the beginning of the year 138 thousand Russian tourists have gone on vacation in Turkey, which is about 83% less than during the same period last year, when Turkey welcomed about 802 thousand Russians. In general, the share of Russians in the flow of foreigners arriving in Turkey has accounted for only 1.66%.
At the moment, Tez Tour, ANEX Tour and Pegas Touristik are already selling tours to Turkey, and many other tour companies are also preparing to join them.
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