representatives of the tourism industry on why Russians are insensitive to the difficulties on vacation

Ilya Umansky, President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry:

— Russian tourists are no different from any other tourists. They are also attentive to their safety while traveling. Safety in tourism is of fundamental importance. Any incidents affect demand. At the same time, Russia is a huge tourist market. More than 70 million people travel around the country every year, and by the end of this year, according to our forecasts, about 9 million Russian tourists will go abroad.

With such a large volume of the tourist services market, a false feeling is sometimes formed that our tourists are behaving imprudently, but this is far from the case. It’s just that against the backdrop of volume, a certain tourist flow is always preserved in those directions that may seem risky. Until the regulatory authorities make a decision to close one or another direction, the choice remains with the tourists.

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Pavel Shershnev, COO of travel company RussiaDiscovery:

– Rather, our tourists are more likely to endure some inconvenience on the way to a long-awaited vacation. Given the frequency of crises and general instability, rest is of particular importance – the opportunity to switch, gain strength, spend time in beautiful places, on the sea and in the sun. For this, people are willing to endure inconvenience. Often, vacation expenses can take a decent share in the budget, therefore, in order to save money, tourists deliberately go to some kind of hardship and doom themselves to additional difficulties and risks when organizing a vacation.

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Natalia Osipova, Executive Director of the Alliance of Travel Agencies:

“People use their vacation to work hard for another year. Everyone chooses a place of rest for the price and transport accessibility. The travel agency always warns about possible difficulties. Therefore, tourists, as a rule, leaving on vacation, clearly understand what they may encounter, except for unpredictable cases, such as those related to weather conditions.

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Dmitry Malyutin, CEO of online booking service Level.Travel:

“Over the past ten years, people in our country have developed immunity due to various events. At the same time, it is important for a person in a saturated information world to change the picture and reboot. The Russians need this to be in the resource, so the difficulties on the way to rest no longer frighten many.

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Maxim Pristavko, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jet Travel Holding:

“We have been living in a state of turbulence for more than a hundred years, in conditions where nothing frightens us anymore. And not only in terms of tourism and recreation, but in everything else. We have either a revolution, or a civil war, or a world war, or stagnation, or the dashing 1990s, and people are used to adapting.

And most importantly, most people do not have a very high standard of living, they are used to living not very well. Those who fly to the Maldives do not go to the Crimea. And if something happened in the Maldives, then those who can rest there would not fly there – for them, the loss of this amount would not become critical. And for people with not very large incomes and with a rare opportunity to relax on the sea, no matter what happens there.

In the early 2000s, there was a terrible tsunami in Thailand, and in many regions, especially in the Trans-Urals and Siberia, calls immediately went to agencies with questions about how much prices had fallen there and whether there were “last-minute” vouchers.

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Ekaterina Zapolskaya, General Director of the travel company “VIP-Company”:

– A significant part of Russians was born and raised in a closed country, when it was impossible to go anywhere. And then it was opened. And everyone really wanted these trips. People then competed in this: to go to Europe or Asia for the weekend, brag about who got what kind of visa and for how much. Tried to eat this opportunity.

It sits inside us that all this can end, and therefore we must still go where we can. A friend of mine recently told me that every year he tells his wife that he needs to go to Turkey or somewhere else – like the last time. I bought tickets and went. They paid the money, they should not disappear.

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Anna Lukashevskaya, Head of the tourist network “Bank of Hot Tours”:

– For the majority, most likely, the increase in the cost of tours and visa restrictions are more problematic. The share of tourists who bought tours on credit in our company reaches 15%. They are ready to travel on credit, and then pay off for it from a year to three years.

But in general, we see a decrease in the number of tourists sent both within the country and abroad.

True, nothing has changed for the category of tourists who belong to the richer, above the middle class. When choosing a vacation, there are certainly no obstacles in front of them, except for sanctions. But the majority of Russian citizens, as before, could not afford to travel, and now.

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Ivan Samoshin, General Director of the tour operator “Travelmart”:

— It’s not like that, very sensitive! But they got used to it – as well as to all the complexities of their lives! On the one hand, they are ready to endure in order to get to the desired vacation and take the children to the sea. And, calculating the possible risks, they developed fearlessness in comparison with the Europeans. On the other hand, they don’t know where else to go. The choice, for example, is between the overcrowded Krasnodar Territory and Turkey, which has risen in price greatly. And most importantly, we are still unstoppable in the search and discovery of new directions and experiences.

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Timur Yusupov, owner of the Telegram channel “Mir, Gamarjoba”:

– A very limited choice of budget destinations – Turkey, Egypt, Crimea, Krasnodar Territory. We have three warm seas that can be reached by car: Azov, which is considered by many to be a children’s sea, the Caspian Sea, which for some reason, including due to poor infrastructure, is viewed with less desire to relax, and, of course, the Black Sea is the most popular. And accessible.

A large percentage of Russians do not have passports or visas. And, of course, the great Russian “maybe” is actively working. Many believe that this will not affect them in any way, it will carry them through. In order for a Russian to say that he will not go there on vacation, economic reasons must work – a significant increase in prices for travel, accommodation or meals.

Group “Direct speech”