Nordwind Airlines will transport more than 12 thousand Russian tourists to the Thai airport of Surat Thani province from December till April.

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.

Some tours from Moscow to Thailand on the first flights of the winter flight schedule of tour operators are sold at the cost of air tickets. But in general, the dynamics of loading of the boards for the first half of the winter season is now even higher than in the same period a year earlier.

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.

The tour operator Tui Russia has analyzed the demand for the New Year holidays and compiled a rating of tourist destinations where Russians plan to travel with their children.

Analysts from the tourist search resource Aviasales examined airline reservations for 2019 with flights to 185 countries and found out how long, on average, travelers have holidays in certain destinations.

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.

Every fourth tour sold in October for the New Year is a tour abroad. Thailand, the UAE and Turkey are the leaders of the New Year 2020.

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 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. 

In January-June 2019, citizens of the Russian Federation made 21 212 095 trips abroad. This is 6.67% more than in the same period of the last year. Turkey became the leader of outbound tourism, Italy is growing rapidly and tourist flow to Thailand has slightly decreased.

“During the first six months of 2019, the number of tourists from Russia to Thailand increased by 2% - up to 700 thousand tourists,” reported Fabio Chinda, the Charge d'Affaires of Thailand in the Russian Federation. “Tourist flow from Russia increased by 2% for the first six months. Last year, Thailand was visited by 1.4–1.5 million tourists from Russia.

Coral Travel tour operator after a short break resumes flights to Phuket in July. Charter programs to Pattaya will start from the beginning of August. Also at the same time the company changes the airport of arrival. For the summer of 2019, experts from tour operator companies have already noted the trend towards diversification of tourist preferences - more and more of them are going to Southeast Asia in the summer. 

The tour operator began selling tour packages to Phuket and Pattaya for the winter season 2019/20. The flights to Thailand for Coral Travel will be operated by Royal Flight Airline on the new Boeing 777-300ER with business class seats. As Coral Travel reported, the flight program to Phuket airport from Moscow in the winter season is scheduled from October 15, 19 to May 17, 2020 and provides 3 flights of Royal Flight a week.

“Tourist flow from Russia to Thailand in the first quarter of this year decreased within the limits of statistical error - by 0.56%, while tourists' expenses decreased by 1.6%”, Phuket News reported. In March, Russian tourists made 194.5 thousand trips to Thailand, which is 1.3% less than in the same month last year. At the same time, the spending of Russians decreased by 3.3% to 12.9 billion baht ($ 400 million). 

The largest volume of transportation to Thailand from Moscow during low season is performed by Biblio-Globus tour operator - two weekly flights of Rossiya Airlines to Phuket and Bangkok. Thus, flights to Phuket will be operated from April 15 to April 22 three times a week, from April 23 to October 25, two times a week. The flight program of the tour operator to Bangkok will be carried out twice a week (Tuesday, Friday). 

Minimum prices for summer Thailand are indeed lower than in winter, and this gives a hope for tour operators for some activation of sales after the May holidays. Now tour operators can sell tours for 7 nights in a 3* hotel in Thailand with departures in June or September from 66 thousand Rubles up to 74 thousand Rubles (912 – 1,022 Euros) for two persons. 

Thanks to the special offers from the hoteliers of Thailand, now there are a lot of hotels at attractive prices in the range of tour operators, but the leading players cautiously arrange flight programs. Meanwhile, experts say that next winter, prices for tours to Thailand will be significantly higher than they were this winter. 

Thailand is the most popular foreign destination for the Russian travelers this New Year festive season, the Russian Association of Tour Operators (ATOR) has said. Among the domestic destination Sochi turned out as the most popular winter resort, the tourism industry Association revealed.