Cheaper air tickets in autumn provided Russians with a Roman holiday

Velvet season remains attractive for travelers

Summer holidays are over, but for many Russians, vacation is just ahead – those who are not burdened with school-age children often tend to go on vacation during the velvet season. At the end of September, the sea is still warm, and the heat subsides, and, most importantly, prices go down with it. Where the Russians go to rest in the fall and how much it costs, MK figured it out.

The difference in price is one of the most tangible reasons to choose a vacation in September-October: the current cost of flights from Moscow abroad and back is about 27% lower than it was in summer. Such data was shared by specialists from one of the popular travel booking sites. A quarter of the price is a significant savings! Those who are going to travel within Russia can save even more – on domestic flights, the difference between summer and autumn prices reaches 42%.

The cheapest (and therefore the most popular) destinations in the velvet season were Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and the UAE – the sea, of course, is not everywhere, but not all tourists tend to go to the beach. However, this desire is also easy to satisfy: ticket prices for Turkish resorts (round-trip) in September-October start from 18,376 rubles – for this money you can fly to Alanya, however, without luggage. A flight to Antalya or Bodrum will cost about 22 thousand.

Surprisingly, the flight to Rome was in the top 10 cheapest tickets for the 2023 velvet season. You can get from Moscow to the Italian capital for 34 thousand rubles (including all transfers). For comparison, a direct flight to Cairo costs the same.

Despite the difficult foreign policy situation and difficulties with logistics, Russian tourists do not give up holidays in Europe, and Roman (as well as Paris, Madrid or Vienna holidays) also turned out to be cheaper to plan in the fall. For example, a flight to Rome has fallen in price by 61% (34,383 rubles is the current price; 87,556 rubles is the summer price). It has also become significantly more profitable to get to Barcelona (47,850 rubles – current price; 94,464 rubles – summer price) or Milan (41,211 rubles – current price; 81,370 rubles – summer price). Of course, about the previous ticket prices – many people remember how they flew to Italy for 5999 rubles! – one can only dream, but the almost halving of prices somehow makes trips to Europe affordable for more Russians.

Recall that among the most loyal European countries that still issue Schengen visas to tourists are France (with a good visa history, you can count on a year), Spain (the most common visas for 3 months), Greece (mostly single entry visas), Italy and Portugal.

Those who cannot or do not want to travel to Europe (and even to Turkey) now also have a reason to rejoice – travel within Russia has also fallen in price during the velvet season. Sochi became the leader: a 59% decrease in cost is recorded here (7,900 rubles is the current price of the average price of a round-trip ticket; 19,200 rubles is the summer price). It should be noted that Sochi today is the only open airport in the south of Russia, so almost all the streams of holidaymakers are drawn there. Crimea, for example, can only be reached by train. Also, tickets to Dagestan, which is rapidly gaining popularity, have also fallen by 58%: a flight to Makhachkala today will cost 7,762 rubles (instead of 18,298 rubles in summer).

The popularity of trips to neighboring countries is stable. You can fly to Minsk in the fall of 2023 for 8 thousand rubles, to Yerevan or Samarkand – for about 21 thousand rubles. The cheapest way for Muscovites to fly on vacation is to St. Petersburg (4,771 rubles), Ufa (4,852 rubles), Kazan (5,000 rubles), Yekaterinburg (5,242 rubles) and Samara (5,405 rubles).

Also, experts summed up the results of the first half of 2023 – the preferences of tourists turned out to be quite predictable. The most popular holiday destinations are St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kazan, as well as the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory or the Kaliningrad Region. Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Kislovodsk are also in the top of the most popular cities for trips, according to experts from services for booking accommodation (hotels and apartments). On average, people booked accommodation for three days. At the same time, the average cost of daily rent was 3,650 rubles, which is 5% more expensive than it was a year ago.

At the same time, prices increased the most in Krasnodar – by 14% (up to 2,430 rubles per day), Kislovodsk – by 13% (up to 3,150 rubles), Yekaterinburg – by 12% (up to 2,740 rubles), Nizhny Novgorod – by 12 % (up to 3,720 rubles). In Kaliningrad, the increase was 9% (2,890 rubles), in Adler – 8% (3,750 rubles), in Moscow – 6% (3,940 rubles), in Kazan – 5% (3,620 rubles), in Sochi – 5% ( 4,420 rubles). Surprisingly, housing prices in St. Petersburg have remained stable – prices have risen by only 0.5%.

Most users of online booking services traveled this year only in Russia (57%). At the same time, 25% made only one trip, 13% went on vacation twice, 7% – three times, and another 14% managed to go on more than four trips. The main purposes of travel are recreation and a trip to relatives.