Crimea faces a serious decrease in tourist flow
The coronavirus pandemic in the world and the associated quarantine regime in a number of countries and regions significantly threatens to reduce the tourist flow by half.
Representatives of the Crimean tourism sector stated this in comments to PolitNavigator.
Thus, according to the president of the public organization “Assistance to the Development of Crimea”, former director of the Crimean Tourist Center Dmitry Savchenko, hoteliers did not increase prices this year, but some of them began to introduce special regimes for visitors.
“I don’t know that prices are going up. I’m literally on my way to the hotel right now, the prices there are very low. The fact that the coronavirus will affect the decrease in tourist flow is obvious. My personal forecast is to decrease to 50%. The next two weeks will show how seriously this situation will develop. So far it looks like some kind of far-fetched panic...
But a number of hotels have already introduced their own measures. For example, the Mriya Hotel does not allow people from outside onto its territory - only those who bought seats from them go inside. They protected themselves from this - previously they sold tickets to visitors so that they could visit the attractions that are located inside, but now they do not allow anyone from the outside. This kind of internal quarantine was introduced,” Savchenko said.
The pandemic also had a slight impact on Crimean travel agencies. According to Oksana Rybina, deputy director for marketing and sales of the tour operator Kenesh Tour, vacationers have begun to book fewer tours for the future in recent days, but at the same time, they are not averse to sitting out the quarantine on the southern coast of Crimea.
“If early bookings were very active until last week, then in the last three days they have started booking with caution. Today there is already a noticeable decline in new bookings, plus tourists are afraid to pay, because there is no certainty, it is not known how events will develop. But we have noticed an increase in bookings for upcoming dates.
Apparently, people are afraid of quarantine and want to wait out this time in a favorable environment in the south, in the sun, by the sea. Moreover, this also applies to high-level hotels - four to five stars. And so, while July and August, people are in no hurry to cancel, but applications for April and May are proceeding with caution,” says Rybina.
At the same time, places in mini-hotels are already almost sold out, at least for the May holidays, said Natalya Stambulnikova, chairman of the Association of Small Hotels of Crimea.
“Medium and small tourism businesses left prices at the level of last year and even the year before. The prices are obviously not inflated. We are not seeing mass cancellations of reservations; on the contrary, the number of direct sales and direct bookings has increased - that is, not through tour operators, but directly. I can say that in small businesses the May holidays are almost sold out and key summer dates are also sold out. Demand is growing,” assures Stambulnikova.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.