Tour operator canceled charter program to Gambia

Coral Travel has canceled its flight program to Gambia. The nearest air flight of Royal Flight airline from Moscow, scheduled for November 13, will not be performed. This was reported on Wednesday, November 7, by Elina Zeveleva, the head of the integrated financial settlements centre of MGP network (retail). The start of sales of tours to this African country Coral Travel announced in the summer, the first charter flight there was carried out on October 1. It was planned that the program will last until March 28, 2019. The press service of the tour operator could not give any commentary. On the market this decision of Coral Travel is considered as quite predictable. “I think that the supplier took this decision solely for the financial reasons. It turned out to be unprofitable to sell tours to this destination,” explained Elina Zeveleva. The representatives of retailers believe that the tour operator did not have sufficient power to promote an exotic country earlier unfamiliar to the Russians. According to observers, it caused interest, but above all - among the travel agents themselves. As for the end-users, many were frightened by the need to make vaccinations against malaria and yellow fever. This information cut off a large part of tourists with children - when they learned such details about the trip, they changed their plans. Even reasonable prices did not help to keep customers - the cost of tours in October started from 98 thousand Rubles (1,295 Euros) for two persons. However, travel agents say: the drop in demand is now observed on almost all destinations. The tour operator simply chose the wrong moment to open this country.