Turkish Coast Misses Russians
First time in ten years, the most popular destination of Russia’s tourists, Turkey, showed the decline past summer, Russia’s Statistics Service said in the yesterday’s report complied for the first nine months of 2006. France and Czechia had fewer tourists as well despite the general growth of Europe’s popularity.
Russian Statistics Committee takes into account the data provided by frontier services, i.e. the purpose of trips is taken as specified by tourists themselves. So, predictably, China and Poland are the routes most favored by Russians.
The decline hit the most popular direction, Turkey. The number of tourists shed 1.5 percent to 1.3 million from April to September of this year mostly on negative information about the country, ranging from explosions to the bird flu. In the third quarter separately, the number of tourists stepped up 1.4 percent on year.
Montenegro manifested the highest surge past summer. “Its resorts don’t differ much from Croatia, but they are materially cheaper,” explained Tatiana Sergeeva from Capital Tour. But Montenegro will hardly repeat the success next summer, the growth will be around 20 percent, Sergeeva forecasted.
But nearly 24-percent decline in flow to Czechia is mystery even for the tourist firms. The regions are becoming less interested in Czechia, while this direction is still popular in Moscow, said Irina Tyurina, briefer of Russian Tourism Industry Union.
The aggregate tourist flow went up just 13 percent in the summer season on average. Regardless, big tourist companies count on the 30-percent increase in sales by the year-end. Now, the clients are shifting from small and middle tourist firms to the big ones, market players said.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 30, 2006
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