Is It Time to Invite Tourists Yet?

Krasnodar, 29 April. Leading national travel operators have reportedly announced the launch of charter flights to Sochi. 

Summer tours to Sochi can be reserved from June 1. However, people tend to be overcautious, and buy tours in August or September, or even in October and November. Although the target audience of main travel operators is air passengers, the air flights would hardly be stabilised very soon. 

Experts believe that although both the operators and the spas in Sochi may well be prepared to resume the tourist season, the situation with the pandemic in Russia would hardly improve by June 1 so much to let the holidaymakers head for resorts or other destinations where close contacts and big crowds are possible. This is why, the loud announcements of the tourist operators are related to the fact that they are ones of those who suffered most from the coronavirus infection and therefore they are cherishing the hope that their compatriots, tired of sitting at home, would pour into seaside resorts. However, taking into consideration the course of the disease, the quarantine would most likely be extended until the end of May, because the peak of the infection in Russia is expected not earlier than in mid-May. 

“Even if the self-restrictions for travelling would be lifted in June, the tourist destinations would remain close for some more time,” Finam analyst Aleksei Korneyev commented. 

According to Valentina Bogdanova, Chair of the Board of AMOS Hoteliers’ Association, the entire tourist community together with the hotel industry of Sochi and Anapa gave an enthusiastic support to the news that major Russian tourist operators had begun to sell tour packages from June 1. “We are getting continuous confirmations of applications, and if things will go as we expect, the resorts may fill up quite quickly. It will not resolve all problems, though it may let us not fall even deeper into the economic hole,” Ms. Bogdanova argued.

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