Despite the crisis in Greece, Russian tourists book more tours to Hellas

The economic crisis in Greece has not affected the interest of Russian tourists to the destination, the number of bookings, on the contrary, increased, according to surveys made by Russian Travel Digest and Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR). According to publication of Interfax, the leading Russian tour operators on the Greek destination are seeing an increase in the number of bookings to Greece. This is due to coming high season period, and to balanced proposal o tour packages from tour operators. "We are seeing a gradual increase in the number of calls and the number of reservations, so we have optimistic forecast," General Director of Mouzenidis Travel Alexander Tsandekidi said. "As high season is closer, we see the increase in the number of bookings to Crete and Rhodes, which corresponds to the traditional summer trend. Greece is among the most popular summer destinations, mostly because of good prices," the General Director of Pegas Touristik Anna Podgornaya told. According to PR-director of tour operator TEZ Tour Larissa Akhanova, Greece is one of the cheapest countries in Europe, while there are many tour varieties, like beach holidays, sightseeing, piligrim tours etc. According to tour operators, tourists do not cancel their trips, they are not afraid of the unstable financial situation in Greece. The bestsellers are four-, and five-star all inclusive hotels with good infrastructure, since they require minimum expenses on spot. In the Russian office of the Greek National Tourism Organization also noted that those Russians who were going on holiday to Tunisia, might go to Greece. In 2014, Greece became one of the top five most popular beach destinations among Russians. It was visited by 1.16 million Russian tourists.