How the tourism industry of Crimea managed without Booking.com - now it will be useful to the rest of Russia
The Booking.com service has stopped serving the Russian segment of accommodation facilities. Searching and booking hotels is possible only outside the Russian Federation.
Booking introduced the first sanctions against Crimea in 2018, leaving the possibility of online hotel booking only for business trips. service. During this time, the tourism market has adapted, developing its own websites and cooperation with Russian booking systems and tour operators.
“Therefore, for Crimea this situation will be less noticeable, since we are the most prepared for it,” said Vadim Volchenko, Minister of Resorts and Tourism of Crimea.
Russian aggregators of rental tourist housing and hotels “Ostrovok”, “Tutu.ru”, “Yandex” will gradually occupy the Booking niche, OSIG President Alexey Volkov is convinced.
Booking was the largest online accommodation booking service in Russia, accounting for about 35-40% of the market. But the experience of Crimea shows that with the departure of one resource, other platforms move up to its level, trying to occupy the niche as much as possible.
All international aggregators and booking sites have not been working with Crimea for many years, and many hotels have invested in their own resources and social networks. Therefore, foreign tourists will feel the consequences of Booking sanctions to a greater extent.
After 2018, when Booking reset all the achievements of Crimean accommodation facilities - reviews, ratings, websites, only a few properties on the Crimean coast remained in the system. But they also stopped cooperation, since the aggregator’s commission was very high and reached 20% of the cost.
“In 2017, I paid Booking about 800 thousand rubles for my property, and I grabbed my head - I urgently need to create my own pages on social networks and a website with direct booking,” emphasized Natalya Stambulnikova, head of the Association of Small Hotels of Crimea. “The majority of properties with 20 rooms and above have already invested in their own online representations and have reached 80% of direct sales.”
Direct sales and work with domestic tour operators are becoming more relevant against the backdrop of the closure of air traffic with foreign airports.
There was no outflow of tourists in Crimea due to Booking’s actions in 2018. And vacationers from Belarus will soon join the Russians.
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