The leading winter destinations show a significant increase in sales on the stage of early booking. The growth of the demand in tours to the UAE, Thailand, Vietnam and India is very significant this year.

Russian tourists are changing their mind about summer holidays. We used to consider July and August the highest points of summer, but now the high request is stable from May to October. That was the topic of experts’ conversations during the business program of traditional Coral Travel autumn award event-Starway 2019.

Russian tourists most often buy winter tours on early booking program in Thailand, the UAE and Vietnam. Also the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Cuba are among the leading destinations for Russians in the winter season.

The minimum prices for holiday tours to India are comparable to the cost of air tickets to the destination. Experts see the reason of the situation in the specifics of India as a tourist destination.

Royal Flight air company will open the new destination from the international airport of Krasnodar for winter season. The tourists are planning to visit Indian state Goa from Krasnodar this winter directly. The flights will be fulfilled once in 11 days according to schedule since 02.11.2019 till 24.03.2020 on Boeing 757-200 with capacity of 239 passengers on board.

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 distinctive feature of winter 2019-2020 flight program to Dominican Republic is the appearance of the flights not only from the Russian capital, but also from several regional airports.

The flights to Cuba are planned by 5 main Russian tour operators. They have chosen 6 different airports of Cuba as arrival points for the tourists. This wide spectrum of proposals will be an attractive moment for them. Some programs are planned for the whole year round. The table below shows the details of all the programs published by tour operators till now.

There will be more charter players on the Mexican destination this winter season. From October 18, the direct charter flights Moscow - Cancun of Royal Flight will start in the interest of Coral Travel. Boeing 777-300 ER with a business class will be used on the route. 

The tour operators, working on the destination, have arranged flight programs for the winter season 2019-2020 (from October 2019 to May 2020). The upcoming winter season promises to be difficult for the destination, experts do not expect a significant increase in demand, but, however, do not predict a serious decline. 

August, 10 the first flight from Moscow to Varadero was fulfilled. 03:30 Boeing 777-300ER started from Sheremetyevo in Moscow and in 11 and a half hours arrived to Varadero with 492 tourists on board. There was 100% aircraft loading, demonstrating the high level of request for the destination among Russian tourists.  

From August 15, Royal Flight will resume charter flights from Kaluga International Airport to Antalya in Turkey. This information is provided by the press service of the regional government.   The agreement was reached at a working meeting between the region’s governor, Anatoly Artamonov and the general director of the airline, Besiki Kvirkviy.

Thanks to the three new Boeing 777-300 ER from Royal Flight, this year Coral Travel tour operator will significantly increase its presence in the Caribbean: in addition to Cuba, charter flights of the tour operators will fly to the Dominican Republic. 

The charter program of the tour operator to Varadero starts in less than a month and is scheduled for the entire winter season. This became possible thanks to the replenishment of the fleet of the strategic partner of the tour operator - Royal Flight - with three Boeing 777-300 airplanes with business class.  From August 10, 2019, the charter flight program of Coral Travel from Moscow to Varadero will be launched on the wings of Royal Flight. The flights to Varadero will be carried out from Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport 2 times a week (on Wednesdays and Saturdays). The flight time will be 12 hours. 

Coral Travel canceled the flight program to Rhodes from St. Petersburg From 05.07.2019 (the company had previously canceled flights from Rostov-on-Don). According to travel agents, tourists are not satisfied with the proposed alternatives - departures from Moscow or only ground service without air ticket compensation. The tour operator explained the cancellation of flights by low loading of boards. 

Tour operators continue to cut flight programs to Turkey from Tatarstan. As Kazan travel agents reported, Coral Travel and Pegas Touristic tour operators have canceled one flight. In addition, Pegas Touristic also changed the boards to Antalya to smaller ones: instead of Boeing-777, the flights will be performed by Airbus A321. Thus, if in May and the beginning of June, the supplier sent 2300-2500 people a week to Antalya, now only 1,870 seats are planned to use. 

Tours to Tanzanian Zanzibar from Coral Travel on New Year's dates will be presented on the flights of Oman Air. The supplier took guaranteed rooms in the best Zanzibar hotels, which can be booked at attractive prices now. “Tourists from Russia are more and more interested in exotic destinations in Africa, including Tanzania and its island Zanzibar, the demand for which has increased in recent years. This you can see even in hotels that previously could be booked instantly, but now many of them are in stop a year in advance,” told Margarita Osipova, the leading specialist in the department of exotic of the tour operator. 

Tour operator Coral Travel (Odeon) is the leader of the Rhodes destination this year in Russia. Five Russian cities with more than million population were chosen for charter program to Diagoras airport (Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Rostov-on-Don and Krasnodar). As travel agents say, with early booking discounts, start of the program was booked well. All the flight programs are being fulfilled now.

This summer, three new cities of departure for charter flights to Turkey became available to tourists of Coral Travel tour operator. Moreover, prices for tours with departures from new regions are now lower than similar tours with departures from Moscow.   As Marina Makarkova, the head of the public relations service of Coral Travel tour operator, told that for the convenience of regional tourists the company in its charter flight program added three new cities of departure to the popular Turkish resort Antalya. 

On 28-th of May, 2019, Coral Travel has started the charter program to Greek island Rhodes from Rostov-on-Don (RTD: canceled in June 2019). The program is carried out by Royal Flight on B-737 once a week from 28.05.2019 till 01.10.2019. The first flight was fully completed. There was the group of tour managers for fam trip onboard. Odeon welcomes this trip in Rhodes. 

On March 12, the seventh Starway World Best Hotels Award ceremony was held, which was established by Coral Travel. Mitsis Ramira (Greece) became the best hotel for the second year.  The second place was taken by Cornelia de Luxe Resort (Turkey), the third - Maxx Royal Belek Golf Resort (Turkey). Among the winners are hotels in Turkey - 62, Greece - 11, Tunisia - 7, Vietnam - 6, Thailand - 5, United Arab Emirates - 3, Russia - 1. 

At the conference "Spring-Summer 2019", which Coral Travel tour operator held in Moscow, Turkish hoteliers noted that sales on the Russian market for the summer are not as intensive as they want. Some luxury hotels are ready to prolong the action of early booking. 

The tour operator continues to discover and develop exotic destinations in Africa. Following last year’s experiment with Gambia and after entering Tanzania this year, the company opened a sale of group tours to another African country. 

We are going to speak about the summer plans of all the TOs for summer 2019 in Greece.