The tourist business has become Russified – Newspaper Kommersant No. 17 (7462) dated 01/31/2023

Crises due to the pandemic and hostilities in Ukraine have led to a reduction in the number of registered tour operators and agents by almost 20% since 2020. Most notably, this affected Moscow, St. Petersburg and Primorye, which depend on international flows, and in the Caucasus, Kamchatka and the Murmansk region, the number of players grew due to domestic tourism. The latter is likely to remain a growth point in the industry.

As of January 2023, 43.54 thousand travel companies were registered in Russia, which is 2.75% less than a year earlier, and 19.74% less than in January 2020, calculated in Kontur.Focus. The calculations take into account structures whose main activity is travel agencies or tour operators. According to analysts, the industry began to gradually move away from the crisis due to the pandemic, but due to the geopolitical situation that became more complicated in 2022, the dynamics remained negative.

The director of the Turpomoshch association, Alexander Osaulenko, points out that at the beginning of 2020, there were 530 tour operators in the register of his organization, and at the beginning of this year – about 400 players. Thus, the number of outbound tourism participants decreased by 24-25%. According to Mr. Osaulenko, some of the companies that left the association could move into the shadow segment, but the number of players there also decreased. The 2GIS data also indicated a reduction in the number of travel agency offices by 11% per year.

The founder of the Persona Grata agency, Georgy Mokhov, believes that the exit from the market of travel companies is due to economic reasons and cannot be called massive. “According to the results of January, 70 tour operators were excluded from the federal register, this is a normal correction at the beginning of the year,” he says. Mr. Osaulenko points out that in 2022, for the first time since the start of the pandemic, new players began to appear in the Turpomoshch register. According to Kontur.Fokus, since 2020, a total of 22.47 thousand travel companies have been liquidated in Russia, and half as many have been registered – 11.7 thousand organizations. In 2022, 34% more companies were liquidated than registered.

A noticeable decrease in the number of players is observed in the largest markets. In St. Petersburg, according to Kontur.Focus, there are now 3.6 thousand travel companies, which is 29.4% lower than the same value in January 2020. In Moscow, over the same period, the number of organizations decreased by 29.2%, to 7.6 thousand companies. A decline of 25-26% is also observed in the Tula, Ivanovo, Yaroslavl, Voronezh and Belgorod regions. In Primorsky Krai, the number of market participants decreased by 22.1% to 718 companies. The negative dynamics is largely due to the reduction in outbound and inbound flows, says Sergey Romashkin, general director of the Dolphin tour operator. In Moscow, according to him, 85% of the average agent’s sales before the pandemic were provided by foreign tours.

In Dagestan, against the backdrop of growing tourist popularity in the region, the number of travel agencies has grown by 57.8% over three years, to 388 companies. In Kamchatka, the number of market participants increased by 24.5%, to 473 organizations, in the Murmansk region – by 18.8%, to 380 companies. Positive dynamics is also observed in other regions of the North Caucasus and the Far East. Mr. Romashkin explains that partly we are talking about organic growth due to an increase in the number of arrivals in the regions, and partly about the whitewashing of the market. “Large tour operators began to work more in Dagestan with certain requirements for contractors. As a result, people who previously provided private services are now registered as domestic tourism operators,” he says.

Alexander Osaulenko notes the gradual improvement of the situation in the tourist market. At the end of 2021, 100 participants of Turpomoshch reported zero income from outbound sales, and in 2022 there were more than three times as many of them, he points out. Georgy Mokhov expects a continued reduction in the number of players in the outbound tourism market and an increase in domestic participants. And Mr. Osaulenko notes that the tour operator business can support the full opening of China and the expansion of the number of European destinations.

Alexandra Mertsalova