Tourists underloaded hotels – Newspaper Kommersant No. 213 (7414) dated 11/17/2022

Although in the first three quarters of 2022 the Russian hotel market was able to overcome last year’s decline in customers, it has not yet been able to recover to the level it was before the pandemic. Recovery is hampered, in particular, by the difficult situation in the country’s two major markets – Moscow and St. Petersburg, where hotel occupancy traditionally depends heavily on foreign guests. But market participants expect that next year the dynamics may change: they hope for an increase in domestic tourist flow against the background of the country’s growing isolation.

In January-September 2022, 50.73 million people stayed in Russian accommodation facilities, which is 7.7% more than in 2021, but 6.4% less than in 2019, Kommersant calculated based on Rosstat data. Vadim Prasov, vice-president of the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers, says that the dynamics correspond to his feelings, although it is more correct to focus on changes in cash flows. Rosstat data does not include the “gray” sector – apartments and guest houses, explains Sergey Romashkin, general director of the Dolphin tour operator. “Their download could grow more noticeably due to the lower cost of placement,” he does not exclude.

The hotel market this year as a whole is going through stressful recessions well, Vadim Prasov believes. The founder of Ivashkevich Hospitality, Stanislav Ivashkevich, recalls that against the backdrop of massive booking cancellations in the spring and a sharp narrowing of the corporate segment, it seemed to hoteliers that the summer season would be a failure. But the reality, he argues, turned out to be better than expected.

One of the growth leaders for the nine months of 2022, according to Rosstat, was the Kamchatka Territory, where the number of guests was three times higher than a year ago, and 2.5 times higher than in 2019. But such a pronounced dynamics is associated with a low base: in total, 315 thousand people stayed in hotels in the region in January-September. Interest in Kamchatka is growing, but the number of accommodation facilities remains limited, explains Vadim Prasov.

A noticeable increase against the background of a low base was also achieved by accommodation facilities in Chukotka, where the number of guests in the nine months of 2022 increased by 1.5 times year on year. But we are talking about only 19.4 thousand people. The indicators of other regions of the Far East are now lagging behind the pre-crisis values. Thus, in January-September, 542.5 thousand guests were accommodated in Primorsky Krai, which is 39% less year-on-year, in Sakhalin – 119.2 thousand, or 19% less than in the same period of 2021.

In the first three quarters, 7.31 million people stayed in Moscow accommodation facilities, which is 3.73% less year-on-year and 14.84% compared to 2019. The reason for this reduction is the lack of foreign tourists, says Mr. Prasov. Although St. Petersburg, according to him, feels worse in this regard: the hotel market in Moscow is supported by guests who come for business purposes, while 50-60% of St. Petersburg’s clients before the crisis were foreign tourists. According to Rosstat, 3.04 million people stayed in St. Petersburg hotels in January-September, which is 40.3% lower than in 2019, but 46% more than last year.

At the same time, the Moscow region and the Leningrad region showed more confident rates of recovery of the hotel market. The flow of guests to these regions in January-September lagged behind the same period in 2021 by 0.5%, and in 2019 by 6.4%. This may be due to the high demand for accommodation in country hotels in general: during crises tourists prefer to stay close to home.

Vadim Prasov points out that in the absence of new geopolitical and economic upheavals next year, the hotel market can expect to recover due to the growth of domestic tourist flow and the influx of guests from friendly countries. Although Stanislav Ivashkevich points out that the latter are strongly constrained by the high cost of flights, difficulties with the work of bank cards and visas. Sergei Romashkin also counts on the high demand of Russian tourists, speaking of the growing isolation of the country. He claims that there is now an active booking of domestic holidays for the summer of 2023.

Alexandra Mertsalova