“Any additional obligations will most likely have a negative impact” – Kommersant

Cross Insights partner told Kommersant about the development model of the Russian online travel market and the niches that remain on it. Boris Ovchinnikov.

— When did the e-travel market form in Russia?

— Around the mid-2010s, one could talk about him as already mature. The development of the segment began with the emergence of individual booking systems, but mass demand arose after three key shifts – the popularization of search engines-aggregators, the emergence of normal online interfaces for carriers and their partnerships with aggregators.

— Now the segment is growing, like online retail in general?

— The e-travel market is very different from e-commerce. If in it growth is still determined by the flow of demand between online and offline sales, then in e-travel this factor is no longer significant.

The market for online travel agencies is strongly related to the overall dynamics of consumption of tourism services in the country. Its potential does not depend on market participants, but rather on the general situation in the country and the world. Therefore, we can say that the indicators have likely increased relative to the level of 2022, but not relative to the pre-pandemic 2019 level. In certain segments, the dynamics for Russian players are clearly positive due to the forced reorientation of demand for domestic tourism and the departure of international players.

— Limited consumption restrains growth, but what promotes it?

— There are four main areas in e-travel: sale of air and railway tickets, accommodation, organized tours. The first three segments are already rather full; in the case of organized tours, there is still potential for growth. It also exists in the B2B bookings segment: the share of offline or combined models in the case of business travel arrangements is still high due to the presence of certain reporting requirements.

— Will new segments, such as sales of excursions and author’s tours, grow?

— There is potential, but this is a niche product, and the market size is not comparable to the sale of tickets or accommodation. Also, the prospects will obviously be affected by the situation around the Sputnik aggregator, whose general director was in custody after the death of the group on a digger excursion in August. It cannot be said that the presence of such risks came as a surprise, but living examples always have a psychological impact.

— Do new players continue to enter the online booking market? Do they have any prospects?

— In recent years, we have not seen examples of truly third-party companies appearing on the market. For example, the introduction of a housing booking module on Avito was a logical attempt to monetize the business. Travel services launched by banks, marketplaces, map services and other third-party players with a large client audience are nothing more than an understandable attempt to additionally monetize the audience. Sometimes projects are successful, sometimes not, but since they are usually launched on the basis of partnerships with specialized participants in the e-travel market, they do not require large investments, and even in case of failure, the losses are small.

E-travel is a low-margin business. To make a project for a wide audience, the costs of which would justify itself, in my opinion, is difficult. Activity is now concentrated primarily in business tourism or niche products.

— Updating the legislative framework will not have a positive effect?

— In specific situations, for example, in terms of determining the area of ​​responsibility of aggregators, in an ideal world this would be a plus. But I can hardly imagine a situation in which the state would agree with the formulation that the only function of the aggregator is to collect and display available offers. And any additional obligations will most likely have a negative impact.

Interviewed by Alexandra Mertsalova