The most imaginative and eye-catching stands at 40th WTM London have been announced, with Moscow, Brazil, Cape Town and Indonesia among the winners. The winner of the ‘Best Stand Design’ award was Moscow City Tourism Committee, which was praised for its “bright colorful use of glass panels and use of virtual reality”.

24.09.2019 Intourist Russian tour operator gathered its agents from St. Petersburg on the closed seminar. The TO representative apologized for the negative informational situation connected with Thomas Cook bankruptcy. The seminar was arranged to calm the agents and to confirm all the declared plans of Intourist for winter season.

The world’s main tourist event –World Tourism Organization General Assembly was held during 09-13 September in Russia this year and tourism ministers and officials all over the world took part in it. There were 2150 participants from the travel industry from 138 countries in Saint-Petersburg.

Thai players do not agree with statistics, according to which the number of tourists traveling to Thailand is declining. In particular, basing on the estimates of the Thai tourism office, in the first six months of this year, the number of tourists from Russia decreased by 3%, but the Kingdom hopes to host 1,5 million people, as last years.

Saint Petersburg the traditional annual party of Sletat.ru travel agencies took place. Sletat.ru held a huge costume ball in honor of upcoming 5 year anniversary of the franchises. More than 100 heads of offices, key partners and Management of Sletat.ru were brought together in «Palma» Mansion of the Society, an ancient building in the heart of Northern capital of Russia.

August,18 the first test passengers flight was fulfilled to the new airport is Saratov. That is the way to celebrate the Civil Aviation Day for Victor Vekselberg –the owner of “Regional airports” holding, who was onboard. His company was constructing the airport. Among other passengers there were: Vyacheslav Volodin –Russia State Duma chairman, born in Saratov region, Transport Ministry and Rosaviation officials, State Corporation for air traffic organization employees and many other public people having connections with the city. This flight was fulfilled by Pobeda air company. Andrey Kalmykov the air company director was the flight attendant onboard. He has the license for that job.  

Smarter pricing structures will allow travel brands to create more relevant prices for their customers, boosting revenue and loyalty, finds a new report. Pricing within the travel industry is evolving to match consumers and what they are willing to pay far more accurately as a result of a better understanding of impacting variables and more ability to deploy granular prices across distribution networks.

Moscow, Russia – Organizers of the OTDYKH Leisure Trade Fair are offering a range of unmissable B2B marketing events for exhibitors to partake in at the OTDYKH 2019 expo, which takes place this year, 10-12 September. This comes at a time where live events are proven to be especially important for B2B professionals when it comes to increasing brand awareness and customer engagement.

International airport Krasnodar named after Ekaterina II has started its history in 1932 when 7 air crafts arrived here for agricultural works. A year later the air base Pashkovskaya was founded. Now the airport is situated 12 km away from the city center. Today it is Krasnodar region airport the 3-d large region of Russian Federation.

Krasnodar international airport’s passenger traffic made up 1 264 494 persons in January-April 2019. It shows increase on 10% in comparison with 2018 when it was 1 145 207 passengers.  More than 1 million passengers used internal flights (+8%) and 217 000 passengers used international flights (+24%).  There were 5 313 aircraft departures in January-April 2019 (+3%). 

A quarter of Russian tourists are ready to spend for vacations from 50 to 100 thousand Rubles (688 – 1,376 Euros). At the same time, the number of those who will to save money during holidays has decreased. But tourists up to now have to save money for the long-awaited vacation. Such data was presented by the Momondo service. 

In the summer season, Ural Airlines launches new routes in Russia, the CIS countries and far abroad. At the same time, as noted in the press service of the carrier, the previous summer routes will also continue, and frequency of flights along popular routs will increase.  Among international flights, the airline launches 4 new flights to France: Bordeaux, Montpellier, Paris and Nice. In addition, the frequency of flights from Ekaterinburg to Prague will be increased up to 6 times a week, and from April the frequency of flights from Vladivostok to Sapporo will also increase. 

The company Thomas Cook Group plc buys 100% of the tour operator Biblio-Globus. Not at all "for a penny" and not even for $ 10 million, as some publications, including the federal media, wrote. The deal was concluded on Friday, March 22. 

At the round table at #Intourmarket we discuss with Dear Novichenkova, Director of marketing and communications Ipsos, the preferences of the older generation in tourism. We present to your attention an interesting study from Ipsos-a global research company.

Singapore Airlines was named the "Best Asian Airline" in Russia and the CIS countries by the Business Traveller for the third year in a row. Singapore Airlines already received this Award in 2016 and 2017. The ceremony took place in Moscow on November, 15, 2018.   Business Traveller Awards are given annually for outstanding achievements and innovations in the field of business tourism. In 2018,  37 nominations were presented in 5 categories: "Airlines", "Airports", "Destinations - Business Traveler's Choice", "Hotels", "Arsenal". The winners in each nomination have been determined by the readers of the Business Traveler magazine.  Throughout its existence, the annual Business Traveller Awards have gained the reputation of a reputable award, mostly due to its objectivity. The winners are determined by the readers’ votes. The first Business Traveller Awards ceremony took place in 1988. Nowaday the award is held in the UK, the USA, the Asia-Pacific region, Africa and the Middle East, Germany and Poland.

It is expected that in December, Russian carriers will perform at least three thousand charter flights. Experts note that the growth in charter traffic is already significantly higher than the growth rate of regular aviation traffic in general. From October 15 to November 14, 2018, 2609 charter flights were made.

The data concerning volume and dynamics of passenger traffic by scheduled and charter flights were announced during the conference Online Travel 3.0. The experts also gave a forecast of the Russian passenger traffic based on the results of 2018. At Online Travel 3.0 conference the analysis of civil aviation statistics for January – August 2018 compared to the same period in 2017 was presented by Tatyana Merkulova, TKP Commercial Director.

Contrary to gloomy forecasts, in August-September the number of charter flights remained almost at the summer level. The general director of Vipservice Holding, Dmitry Gorin, said that over the reporting period, from August 15 to September 15, Russian airlines performed 3,781 charter flights in the interest of tour operators.

19.9% ​​of Moscow travel agencies, that took part in the traditional marketing research of BANKO Service, noted that their sales of tours fell insignificantly over last summer season. Another 14.4% showed a significant negative dynamics. The questionnaire was conducted in late August - early September.

Since 22 till 23 of November 2018 the International Tourism Forum SIFT will be held in city-resort Sochi, which is considered to be one of the most important business platform in Russia of the domestic and inbound tourism as well. Location:  Sochi city, the Adler-Arena, the Imeretinskaya Valley. 

RossTour Company plans to complete the work of the tour operator but continue to play as tourist agency. This was announced by the company's general director Alexander Nedopolts. According to the head of RossTour, the company plans to announce the termination of the tour operator’s activity on Friday, October 5, or Monday, October 8.

“Kaliningrad’s Khrabrovo airport and Pobeda airline plan to organize flights from Moscow to Europe via Kaliningrad”, - said the CEO of the airport Alexander Korytny. "In October, jointly with Pobeda airline in the autumn-winter schedule we will begin the implementation of transfer hub project which connects Moscow airport Vnucovo with various cities in Western Europe. It is planned that among them will be Paris, Rome, Geneva and London", - added A. Korytny. According to him, Khrabrovo airport has the task to reduce the parking time at the airport - it should be not more than one hour. At the first stage of this project Pobeda will fly to Kaliningrad only from Moscow, after that the range of cities will be broaden.

Tour operator Natalie Tours notified travel agents about cancellation of paid tours, formed on the basis of charter flights in the directions: Barcelona, ​​Rimini, Catania, Naples, Antalya, Heraklion. The corresponding information was received by retail dealers on Friday evening, June 29. "Due to low financial performance of charter programs in the directions: Barcelona, ​​Rimini, Catania, Naples, Antalya, Heraklion a special decision was made to reduce the number of flights since June 30, 2018.

“Raduga Travel tour operator announced the termination of activities due to the inability to fulfill its obligations under contracts for the sale of tourist products”, - it follows from a notice published on the company's website.