First results of summer season 2015.
Exclusive comments of the biggest networks of travel agencies in Russia
Before the official closing of summer sales, we decided to discuss the results of summer season 2015 with real experts, those who are on top of Russian travel retailer system. Average commission of these sales offices can reach 14%-16% from major tour operators.
MGP, Magazin Goryaschikh Putevok (lit. the Store of Last-Minute Tours) is the provider of our weekly and monthly Sales Index. The company was founded in 1998. Recently it has 360 sales points as franchising, among them 77 are in Moscow. The royalty fee is 24 900 rubles for travel agencies from Moscow, and 12 400 rubles for regional agencies. Director is Sergey Agafonov. The web page of MGP has 6 000 visitors daily. Contact information: mgp.ru, reklama@mgp.ru
TBG Booking Center is one of the most ambitious project of Russian travel industry. The company was founded in 2010. The owner and the director is Dmitry Kobyakov. The web page of TBG Booking Center has 10 000 visitors daily. Contact information: eсenter.travel, spo@ecenter.travel
Online Tours is the new idea of travel agency with focus on online sales. The company was founded in 2012. Director is Matvei German. The web page of Online Tours has 24 000 visitors daily. Contact information: onlinetours.ru, dlitvinov@onlinetours.ru
RTD: How do you consider summer season 2015 I general?
TBG Booking Center (Pavel Demeschenko, Director of Sales): We were ready for worse scenario, but the season was quite good.
Online Tours (Dmitry Litvinov, Development Director): Actually, we are satisfied. Especially taking into account, how far travel market in Russia was affected by economic situation, and deviation of the ruble. A lot of Russians had to change their travel plans. Anyway tourists could not stay without vacation and booked tours rather actively, of course, mostly to such inexpensive mass tourism destinations, as Turkey, Greece, and Egypt. This summer we also register the development of online segment of Russian travel market. To be able to get the best deal, tourists preferred to monitor prices online rather than ask travel agent. So we note that this season the sales of Online Tours are equal to those in the last year, and are even higher for some destinations.
RTD: What would you say about early booking?
MGP (Nadezhda Tkach, Marketing Director): We would say, there were no sales
TBG Booking Center: Early booking failed. We even could say, there were no early bookings this year.
Online Tours: Neither we, nor tourists could understand what ruble exchange rate to be, how the economic situation to develop. We noted that tourists tried to pay at the last moment. According to our data, from November 2014 till January 2015, the general number of queries for tours with departures from April 1 till October 31, decreased by more than 80% in comparison to the same period of the last year.
| Month 2015 | Average Check, RUR | Change to 2014 | Average Check, USD | Change to 2014 |
| January | 82 500 | +22% | 1 250 | -38% |
| February | 84 500 | +12% | 1 300 | -40% |
| March | 84 500 | +20% | 1 400 | -28% |
| April | 75 000 | +9% | 1 400 | -26% |
| May | 75 600 | +11% | 1 450 | -26% |
| June | 82 100 | +13% | 1 500 | -29% |
| July | 89 500 | +21% | 1 550 | -28% |
| August | 85 300 | +24% | 1 300 | -32% |
Information is provided by MGP
RTD: What would you say about last-minute tours? How were the sales?
TBG Booking Center: Tour packages with departures within three days were the most popular, by 30% more popular than in the last season.
Online Tours: This season tour operators were rather cautious with special offers. Taking into account last bankruptcies, they more carefully calculated their programs and prices, did not engage into predatory pricing. So burned-price-tours became the thing of the past.
RTD: How the sales were changed?
TBG Booking Center: In our company, we had increase rather than decrease of sales.
Online Tours: According to the last data, the number of outgoing tourists for the first six months of 2015 decreased by 34% compared to the same period of 2014. But we have to admit that these are general numbers which do not reflect the situation in certain agencies. We would say that significant decrease was stated for offline sales, whereas online sales prominently increased. According to our statistics, our sales increased by specific destinations. The fall was noted for exotic and some European destinations, which is logical, since most of tourists could not afford long-term flights and beaches of Europe.
RTD: How were the sales for most popular destinations?
Online Tours: Most Russians preferred familiar and above all inexpensive destinations. Traditionally and rather predictably the first place was taken by Turkey, followed by Egypt. It is a result of active position of national policies of those countries, who offered special rates for hotels, and special conditions for tour operators.
| Destination | Share of Sales in Summer 2015 |
| Turkey | 35% |
| Egypt | 33% |
| Russia | 7% |
| Greece | 6% |
| Cyprus | 5% |
| Thailand | 3% |
| Spain | 2% |
| Bulgaria | 2% |
| Montenegro | 1% |
| Tunisia | 1% |
Information is provided by TBG Booking Center
| Destination | Share of Sales in Summer 2015 |
| Turkey | 32% |
| Egypt | 19% |
| Greece | 12% |
Information is provided by OnlineTours
| Destination | Average Price Per Person, RUR |
| Turkey | 30 402,24 |
| Egypt | 26 371,78 |
| Russia | 17 330,30 |
| Greece | 38 346,11 |
| Cyprus | 35 282,16 |
| Thailand | 43 072,79 |
| Spain | 41 629,05 |
| Bulgaria | 26 854,04 |
| Montenegro | 36 870,14 |
| Tunisia | 25 286,70 |
Information is provided by TBG Booking Center
RTD: How was the number of tourists per booking in 2015 changed in comparison to 2014?
MGP: For the period May – August 2015, an average number of tourists in a booking was 2,39. In the same period of 2014, it was 2,34.
TBG Booking Center: We did not see any change in comparison to 2014.
| Month 2015 | Average number of people per booking |
| January | 2,23 |
| February | 2,29 |
| March | 2,34 |
| April | 2,36 |
| May | 2,45 |
| June | 2,43 |
| July | 2,40 |
| August | 2,28 |
Information is provided by MGP
RTD: What was an average duration of trips in this summer season?
MGP: Average duration of tour in the period from May till August 2015 was 9.18 nights. In the same period of 2014 the duration was 9.23 nights.
| Destination | Average Duration of Trip, nights | Average Check per Booking, RUR | Average Number of People per Booking |
| Egypt | 8,78 | 73 000 | 2,35 |
| Turkey | 8,83 | 88 000 | 2,46 |
| Thailand | 11,31 | 93 000 | 2,16 |
| Greece | 9,82 | 109 000 | 2,38 |
| Russia | 9,05 | 50 000 | 2,42 |
| Spain | 9,39 | 108 000 | 2,29 |
| Vietnam | 11,56 | 101 000 | 2,17 |
| Cyprus | 9,22 | 103 000 | 2,38 |
| Tunisia | 9,37 | 65 000 | 2,27 |
| India | 11,56 | 117 000 | 2,15 |
| UAE | 8,16 | 144 000 | 2,40 |
| Italy | 8,57 | 89 000 | 1,88 |
| Czech Republic | 8,26 | 81 000 | 1,89 |
| Croatia | 10,31 | 119 000 | 2,23 |
| Bulgaria | 10,82 | 76 000 | 2,41 |
Information is provided by MGP
RTD: The last question: Which promotion tools you consider as more or less effective? Which tools do you see as more or less used in your travel agencies?
| MGP | Online Tours | Booking Center TBG | |
| Webinars | Most used | Used | Used |
| Seminars | Less used | Less used | Not used |
| Direct mails | Not used | Not used | Used |
| FAM Trips | Used | Used | With cooperation with EC |
| Other Tools | Direct communication with travel agents | Our wn tools | Direct communication with travel agents |
