On February 19, tour operators spoke about an alternative for the island of Hainan that they are ready to offer Russian tourists.

Russia’s flag carrier Aeroflot has canceled half of its flights to and from China as inbound traffic from there has drastically declined due to coronavirus fears.

Since February 1, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency has curbed charter flights to China amid an outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Russia’s Transport Ministry has allowed the air carriers to make charter flights from Russia to China in order to retrieve Russian nationals from that country.

The fallout from the coronavirus has left the resort's hotels largely empty. Winter is high season for tourism around Lake Baikal in Siberia, but the coronavirus outbreak has curtailed its main source of income - Chinese holidaymakers.

State-run operator Russian Railways has suspended passenger traffic between Russia and North Korea because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Starting from Saturday, Russia has limited air travel with China and completely suspended regional regular flights between the countries due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Russian airline NordStar has suspended flights from Novosibirsk’s Tolmachevo Airport to the resort city of Sanya in China’s southern province of Hainan.

Russian tour operators have put group tours from China on hold as the country is fighting the outbreak of the coronavirus. The travel ban for Chinese tourists may reduce tourist flow from China in the first quarter of 2020 by some 70-80%.

Tartus Tour announced the adjustment of a flight program from Russian regions to Hainan (Haikou Airport). So, the flights departed from Yekaterinburg (three flights a week) and Tyumen (two flights a week), which were announced in December, were postponed to February 6 and 7, respectively. And the number of departures was reduced to one per week.

The travel service Tutu.ru analyzed all air tickets, sold from any city in Russia, with travel dates from December 1, 2019 to March 1, 2020 and compiled a rating of destinations that are most popular.

Ural Airlines will begin operating flights from Yekaterinburg and Tyumen to Haikou (Hainan Island, China) in February

Trip.com Group and UnionPay International, have jointly published the “2019 Chinese Outbound Travel Consumption Report”. The report, combining big data derived from outbound travel product orders and overseas bank card transactions by Chinese nationals provides insights into the cross-border travel consumption trends of Chinese travellers. According to the statistics from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, Chinese nationals made more outbound travel expenditures than travellers from any other country, with total consumption reaching US$ 127.5 billion. January — November 2019 Travel Report, top 20 destinations for Chinese travellers are: Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, USA, Cambodia, Philippines, Russia, Australia, Italy, UAE, Turkey, France, UK,Myanmar, Maldives, Germany, and New Zealand.

Chinese airline Hainan Airlines will open regular flights between Moscow and the resort island of Hainan. This will add attractiveness to the island and encourage the growth of tourist flow.

The list of popular destinations for winter holidays from Tez Tour includes China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Thailand, Egypt, Spain, Austria, Italy and Andorra.

The representatives of tourist retailers reported the information about the most popular destinations of the beginning of the autumn-winter season. Thailand, the UAE and Vietnam became the leaders in the Asian destinations.

Starting next year, a number of hotels on the Chinese island of Hainan will offer All Inclusive catering system. It is planned that firstly this type of catering system will be offered in 4-5* hotels, and then it will be extended among 3* hotels.

The big flight program from all the main tourist centers has been planned to Hainan by Russian tour operators for this winter season. Some of them are on the “low start” now. But the news about cancellation have also appeared.

Platov international airport in Rostov-on-Don expands the geography of the international flights. The press service of the airport informs that in the upcoming season Azur Air company plans to fulfiil the flights to Chinese island Hainan. The destination is Sanya resort.

27.09.2019 the press service of Kazan international airport informed that Ural airlines are going to fulfill the flight program from Tatarstan capital to Chinese Harbin- the most “Russian” Chinese city.

In the autumn the demand for European destinations such as Greece, Italy and Bulgaria has grown. The demand for autumn holidays in 2019 increased by 26% compared to last year.

Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and India are the leaders of the coming winter. For these areas winter sales grew by 1,5 times within early booking program. The early booking of tours for the winter season this year began very early and the interest of tourists in this action is very high

The flight programs of tour operators to Hainan are significantly expanded, the demand for this resort has increased up to 338%.

Krasnodar international airport press service reports that Azur Air (which is affiliated with Anex Tour) plans to start flight program to Hainan island to Sanya international airport on Boeing 767-300 since 27.10.19 till 22.03.2020. The air craft can take on board 336 passengers.

The market will see a two fold increase in air transportation from Russian cities to Hainan in the winter season. At the same time, the volume of reservations from a number of players does not exceed last year's figures. Experts do not exclude that tour operators will have to actively stimulate demand using special offers. 

A Russian travel association uniting some 200 companies working with the Chinese tourism market, said on Sunday it expects Chinese tourists to spend more than 72 billion rubles ($1.1 billion) in Russia in 2019.