Why Tez Tour canceled its flight program to Egypt on Red Wings
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Limited demand and military conflict in the Middle East are forcing Russian tour operators to optimize planned flights to Egypt. Tez Tour has already made the decision to terminate the block program. In addition, Egypt is now competing with other destinations. The flow of tourists from the Russian Federation to this country by the end of 2023 may increase by 11% year on year, while in general in the segment of foreign tourist trips the growth will exceed 20%.
Tour operators have begun to optimize flight programs to Egypt, the Russian Union of Travel Industry reported. This statement was preceded by a message from the Association of Tour Operators of Russia that the tour operator Tez Tour decided to curtail the block program of air travel to Egypt on Red Wings flights from November 26 due to insufficient demand and low profitability of the destination. At the end of October, the tour operator Izi Tour announced the decision to cancel the planned flight program to Sharm el-Sheikh from Volgograd three days before its start.
In the case of Tez Tour, we are talking about flights from Moscow, Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg and Kazan, planned until April 2024. Customers whose travel was planned from November 26 will be offered a refund or rebook tours to other destinations. The tour operator explained its decision by the rising cost of services, the difficult economic situation, and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. Industry publication “Turdom” previously pointed out the difficulties Tez Tour had with the host country: tourists sent by the company to Egypt were not accommodated in local hotels due to a lack of available rooms.
Kommersant’s interlocutor on the travel market draws attention to the fact that Red Wings flights to Egypt are chartered by another tour operator – Fun & Sun, where they told Kommersant that they do not plan to revise the flight program to Egypt, citing good demand. Red Wings explained that the flight program to Egypt is consolidated and managed by several tour operators. The refusal of one of them to sell package tours, in itself, cannot serve as a reason for canceling flights, they added.
One of Kommersant’s interlocutors in the expert community admits that the airline could reconsider the terms of charter. “The situation looks as if discounts were canceled for Tez Tour or the cost of the flight was increased against the background of the absence of statements from other tour operators to stop selling tours,” he explained. IN “Pegas Touristik” announced their intention to continue the program on flights of the low-cost airline Air Cairo (controlled by Egypt Air). IN Azur Air And “Intourist” there are also no plans to cancel flights.
Demand for Egypt is still stable. Sletat.ru says that the destination was the leader in tour sales in the first half of November, accounting for 27.5% of bookings.
This was the country’s share a year ago, and by the end of October sales increased by 8%. According to Sletat.ru, cancellations of tours to Egypt are rare.
Marketing Director of Travelata.ru Oleg Kozyrev also calls Egypt a leader, speaking of sales growth year-on-year by 24%. “A slight decline in bookings was noted on October 8, but tourists got used to it very quickly,” he notes. The main flow of Russians, according to Travelata.ru, goes to Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada. The average bill for booking a tour in November was 145.8 thousand rubles, which is 12.5% more year-on-year.
Despite the generally positive dynamics, Egypt’s sales are still below the initial expectations of operators, Kommersant’s interlocutors in the market admit.
RST Vice-President Dmitry Gorin expects that the country will be visited by about 1 million tourists from Russia in total this year, which is 11% less than a year earlier. The dynamics lag behind the overall growth rate of the outbound flow. In total, the number of Russians traveling abroad in the first nine months of the year, according to the FSB Border Service, increased by 20.5%, to 21 million.
Mr. Gorin explains that the strengthening of the ruble is now stimulating the outbound flow. With the restoration of flight programs, competition between outbound destinations is also growing, the expert notes. A year earlier, tour operators were also forced to adjust flight programs to Egypt, faced with limited demand in the direction (see “Kommersant” dated October 14, 2022).
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