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Overview of “The Russian Tourism Market Report: Trends, Analysis & Statistics”

B2B MARKETING

Our new division RMAA Travel (Russian travel marketing agency), recently completed a unique research study “The Russian Tourism Market Report: Trends, Analysis & Statistics. How to impress Russian tourists and attract them to your country.” And today we want to present this unique research to you.

If you represent a tourism ministry, foreign company engaged in the travel industry, airline, hotel or foreign advertising agency which deal with the promotion of tourism and travel-related services in Russia, then this research will be extremely useful for you.

Let's peep inside the report.

Russia in the world tourism

Russia plays a significant part in the world tourism. In 2012 Russians spent for holidays abroad 43 billion US dollars enabling Russia to be included in TOP 5 countries in terms of expenditures of their citizens on holidays and travel abroad. In 2013-2014 Russia held the 5th place, but in 2015-2016 it disappeared from the TOP 10 countries due to the currency crisis. In 2017 (+13%) Russia raised from 11th to 8th place and get into TOP 10 again. The rising international tourism expenditures shows the economic upsurge.

What countries Russians prefer to visit

In 2016-2017 most of Russians went to Turkey, Abkhazia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and China. These data include not only tourist trips, but all trips in general.

Russians often go to the countries bordering with Russia such as Finland, China, Poland on business trips, and they also go to the countries of the former USSR (Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Georgia) to visit their relatives and friends.

How much tourists from Russia are ready to pay for a trip

Visa, the international payment company, made Visa Global Travel Intentions Study and revealed how much money people from different countries spend on one trip. According to 2016-2017, travelers from Russia spent $1,676 per one trip. At the same time, 51% of the budget is spent before the trip, and 49% – at the place of destination. 70% of Russians use bank cards when they plan their travel trips.

How Russian tourists plan their journey

The main sources of information affecting the choice of the country of travel: online reviews are 39% and friends are 32%.

Portraits of tourists

We conducted in-depth interviews* with Russian travelers to understand better their needs and peculiarities of behavior. In the interview people tell about what is important for them during traveling, why they choose an organized tour or independent travel.

A good understanding of the target audience allows you to build more meaningful, personalized communication with them, get clear insight into the needs of travelers and conduct affective advertising campaigns.

*Read the interviews with Russian tourists in “The Russian Tourism Market Report” from page 33.

The way of a tourist: from the intention to the review of the trip

The center of power and control over information has shifted in favor of the consumer. Now, it’s ever more crucial to understand the path to a purchase and track the impressions at every point of contact with the audience.

In order you to visualize how tourists from Russia plan their travels, we reproduced the way of a tourist from the moment he or she felt need to travel until he or she came back and shares his or her impressions.

We showed where people seek information, how they make decisions, what emotions they feel, by the example of two portraits:

— a married couple traveling on a package tour;

— a single man travelling alone

**You can download full version of CJM right from the research.

Overview and trends of B2B tourism market

“The market of tour operators is consolidating. If five years ago there were about 15 major tour operators, having significant market share, currently less than 10 remained, and small tour operators became by times less. The market for package tours will continue to live normally and develop, while tour operators will be able to make competitive price offers in the line of mass demand.” - Aleksey Zaretskiy, the founder of Travelata online service

According to the Executive Director of the Association of tour operators of Russia (ATOR) Maya Lomidze, the number of travel agencies will be reduced in Russia in 2018: “In 2018 the number of travel agencies will be reduced due to the legislative changes that will come into effect from January 1 as well as due to the natural selection the market is experiencing now.”

Trends of eTravel market

The volume of online shopping in the Russian tourism market covers a slight share of total travel market, though it is actively growing. According to the Data Insight Study 2016, the online booking is 20% in the segment of tickets; 10-14% in the segment of hotels, and only 3-5% falls at the online sales of tours (for comparison: in the UK– 50%, in Germany –25%). The eTravel market in Russia amounts to nearly $13.7 billion (2017), with stable growth of just over 20% per year.

The most popular online services to buy travel products: Russian Railways website (43% of buyers used this site at least once per the last year); airlines websites (30%); hotel booking services (29%), air tickets sale services (22%); room reservation on hotel websites (21%).

What else you will learn from the research: