In the beginning of April, Tour Operators Association in Outbound Tourism Tourpomosch (click to read more about the Association) reminded tour operators that they according to the law they have to pay the membership fee till April 15, 2015 to extend their membership in the association. Within remaining two weeks, tour operators who are planning to operate in the field of outbound tourism, should pay the fee to compensation fund of Tourpomosch in the amount of 0.1% of the funds received from the sale of tourism products according to the financial statements at the end of 2014, but not less than 100 thousand rubles .

The Russian authorities might decide to create an additional incentive for travel agents to encourage them selling more tours to Russian resorts. As TourDom learned from some sources, it is planned to award with cars those travel agents who would send the maximum number of tourists to Krasnodar region and the Crimea.

An average price for summer tour package to foreign destinations for Russians fell down by 15 – 20 per cent. Interfax informed about that as referred to data from tour operators. Such trend is a result of price drop on some key destinations, cut of expenses for holidays, and dependence of many foreign resorts on Russian travelers.

From April 1, 2015, Russian Tour Operator Natalie Tours closes its offices in Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk. According to Words of Vladimir Vorobiev, the President of Natalie Tours, the main reason is that tour operator refused from flights from Siberia for this summer season. “But we consider the possibilities to have flight programs from Siberia for winter season,” Vladimir Vorobiev says.

On the last week, Rostourism (Federal Agency for Tourism) read out of Federal Registry at once 370 tour operators. The order was published on the web site of Ministry on 16-th of March, however travel industry was busy with tourism fairs in Moscow, MITT and Intourmarket. Recently, there are 3 849 companies in the registry.

By request of Kommersant, Internet Analytics Company com.Score scaled the audience of top ten travel online services in Russia (they counted only web sites’ visitors above 15 y.o.). Both online travel agencies and meta-engines, as well as info resources were taken into account.  In January 2015, the common audience of these web sites totals 20.7 billion visitors, which is by 6.4 billion people less, than in January 2014 (23.6 per cent down).

The company report for 2014 stated that losses are determined by so cold paper corrections, without them net profit of Aeroflot totaled more than 10.8 billion rubles. As of year-end 2014, revenue of Aeroflot Group exceeded 319 billion rubles which is 9.9 per cent more than a year before. In addition, the revenue of regular traffic increased for 10 per cent and amounted more than 253.6 billion rubles.  

In the number of delayed flights in February, VIM AVIA airline is number one among Russian air companies. 54 flights, or 9.36%, were delayed in total by VIM AVIA according to the data published on Russian Aviation website.  The next in that list is IrAero with 57 delayed flights of 617 (9.24%), followed by Saratov Airlines with 27 delayed flights of 336 (8.04%). 

TripAdvisor travel portal released the results of its TripBarometer survey carried out by Ipsos independent agency. Over 44 thousand travelers and hotel staff members were interviewed in different countries, including 1931 people in Russia, of which 1738 were tourists and 193 - hotel staff. The survey shows that just two out of five respondents around the globe plan to spend more on travelling in 2015.

Some small Russian tour operators consider quitting the tourism market since June 2015, as Irina Tyurina, the press-secretary of Russian Tourism Union said on the press-conference without naming any particular companies. We know, as we talk to auditors, that many tour operators are willing to leave the industry, - Irina Tyurina says.

Tourist flow from Russia to Europe will not recover until 2016, the Association of Tour Operators (ATOR) said on Wednesday. Countering Europe-bound movements from other parts of the globe last year, fewer Russian travellers were logged in what the industry called a dramatic downturn expected to continue.

The poll in social media was arranged by OneTwoTrip, 1740 persons took part in it and the result was that 17% of travelers did not follow the rules of visa permission for Schengen countries. They do not enter the country which has issued the visa. 54% of respondents request for visa in embassy of the country they are going to visit. 29% request in countries which considered to be “easy” to get visa permission and they start the travelling with this country.

I planned my visit to Russia without expectations, but the vast forest, stretching for miles around the airport still took me by surprise. The ride to Moscow took about an hour and gave me time to observe the transition from forest surroundings, through what Russia deems to be smaller surrounding cities, to the beaming metropolis.

In the past 24 hours Russia has confirmed 223 351 cases of COVID-19 and 482 death, caused by the novel coronavirus, with the total case count going up to 3 260 138 and 58 988 deaths.