November - December 2017
RUSSIAN OUTBOUND TOURISM MARKET SHORT NEWS
The tour operators Vipservice (also the largest Russian consolidator of airline and railway ticket sales) and Biblio Globus made it to the list of the annual rating of Forbes magazine's "200 largest private companies in Russia" with 78th and 132nd positions respectively.
The Russian online booking service Level.travel published the most popular BEACH destinations among Russians for New Year period 2017-2018. The leading destination is Thailand, followed by India, Vietnam then UAE.
Qatar Airways will launch direct flights from Doha St Petersburg as of end of December 2017.
Oman has simplified visa regime for Russian tourists who have already Schengen, American or Canadian visas document to enter the country. Visas for these citizens will be issued free of charge.
Azerbaijan Airlines will start regular flights from Baku to Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi International Airport). This is the first direct scheduled regular flight from Baku to South-East Asia.
The tour operator NTK Intourist is planning to create its own air fleet next season and projecting that it will represent 30-40% of its total transportation volume.
Flydubai will start flying from Sheremetevo Moscow airport as of 29 November. Flydubai has increased its flights to UAE by 45% in 2017 and now is flying from 11 airports from Russia with 47 flights a week. In addition to UAE, Flydubai is also promoting its connecting flights to the Indian Ocean (Maldives and Sri Lanka), India, Zanzibar...etc.
Kazakh tour operator Kompas bought 30% of Ukrainian tour operator GTO previously specialized mainly in Southeast Asia. GTO is also the only Ukrainian tour operator with flight block on FlyDubai from Ukraine for winter season 2017/2018.
Ural airlines announced direct weekly flights on Fridays from Zhukuvsky Airport Moscow to Geneva from 29 December 2017 to 23 March 2018.
Cyprus Airways is planning direct flights from Kaliningrad to Larnaca, Cyprus on daily basis in 2018. Right now, Cyprus Airways flies only to St Petersburg (Airbus 319, 144 seats).
Anex Tour along with Azur Air started charter flights to Abu Dhabi from Moscow on 24 October 2017 with two weekly flights until end of April 2018. Overall Anex Tour flies from 14 Russian regions to UAE with up to 36 weekly flights.
Skyscanner.ru conducted a poll about favorite European capitals with over 1000 participants. Results: Prague (23,6%), Rome (19.6%), Paris (12.3%), London (9%) and Lisbon (8.6%).
