After Perestroika in 1990, Russians have become a truly travelling nation. In 2016, some 31.7m Russians out of its 146m total population travelled abroad for tourism purposes. Big number, isn’t it? The most exciting news is that the Russian outbound tourism keeps growing by two-digits in 2017!
As compared to the previous year, the number of outbound travels from Russia has grown by 24 per cent in the first quarter of 2017: from 5.4 mto 6.7m trips, Russian Federal Agency for Tourism says.
Russians‘ Top-10 Tourism Destinations
As reported by RATA News, the official e-magazine of the Russian Association of Travel Industry, three Asian countries – Thailand, China and UAE – are the favorite travel destinations among Russian tourists. In the first quarter of 2017, Thailand retained its top-ranking position with 292K Russian tourists showing the increase of 23.3 per cent in comparison with the same period of the previous year. Vietnam and India are also among the top-10 destinations outpacing such a giant as France with its 11th position.
Speaking about Europe, only Germany (rank 4), Italy (rank 5), Spain (rank 7) and the Check Republic (rank 8) could make it to the top-10. Turkey saw a major increase of travels bringing it to the 10th position with 71.2K Russian tourists. This is a growth of 40.7 per cent as compared to 2016, when the tourist flow had decreased significantly due to the political instability in the country.
The exotic Dominican Republic showed the strongest growth dynamics of +185.5 per cent followed by Cuba and Georgia. Whereas the first two are well-known coastal destinations, Georgia is mainly chosen for its guided city-tours and culinary journeys.
Russian eTravel on the Rise
Russian travel market has changed significantly over the past few years. This is a global tendency that reflects ongoing development of the internet technologies and causes transformations in business processes around the Globe.
Following the rise of the Internet penetration in Russia, online travel agencies have been gaining popularity among Russian tourists very rapidly. Not only do they offer an easy way to buy tickets or book packaged tours, they’ve also evolved into important means for promoting travel destinations.
Russians have apparently got used to online services and overcome the psychological barrier of making expensive purchases on the Internet. According to Data Insight analytical agency, there are nearly 10m eTravel customers in Russia with a high average purchase amount. The overall market volume of online travel services has grown by 30 per cent in 2016 amounting to some 10bn euro. It is expected to grow further making use of the expanding mobile commerce market which generates 50.5 per cent of all search queries on the Russian internet with a high percentage of bookings.
Travel Search Queries on the Russian Internet
The analysis of search queries themselves reveals the structure of the Russian eTravel market. According to the Russian biggest search engine Yandex, the most flourishing eTravel segment in Russia is hotel booking: Some 41 per cent of all travel queries online are hotel searches and bookings. The situation is different with packaged tours: their share in the overall travel search is about 14 per cent. Nearly 18 per cent share belongs to generic search making it clear that Internet has become an important source of information for Russian tourists.
Should you think the use of Internet by Russians ends with booking a packaged tour or flight tickets, you are wrong! Tablets and smartphones are widely used before and after holidays. Among the most popular services are not only online and offline maps, public transport route planners and online translators but also booking websites for events and sightseeing tours and even audio guides.
Travel industry experts predict further stable growth of the eTravel segment in the Russian travel market pointing the rising role of mobile commerce in the industry. Several global players such as Booking. com and Tripadvisor.com have already recognized the huge potential of the Russian travel market and now possess top positions on the Russian web search. Do you want the same for your business?…
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