Ship companies, organizing Moscow-river
sails and the capital’s operators on river cruises, begin summer navigation on Friday,
April, 20. The companies will carry about two million passengers, and the cruise
operators – more than 170 thousand. Moscow City Committee for Tourism and Hotel
Industry met at a round table with representatives of the city's travel
companies, specializing in various types of river recreation.
The Head of the Committee, Sergey
Shpilko noted that one of the main goals of his department is to present Moscow as a capital of
river cruises. He noted that Moscow’s
cruise market develops dynamically and offers products of high quality. ”What a
wonderful journey it is one can realize only when he himself sees the city from
the board of a comfortable river motor ship, especially in the evening when the
city is glowing”, - he stressed.
The length of Moscow-river is 80 km. 165 ships pass through
it, 40 of which are leisure boats, 20 – leisure and banquet, and about 100 are just
for banquets. The ships do 11 regular routes in the direction from north to
south. As reported by Mr. Shpilko, the shipping companies carry about two
million people through Moscow-river annually. About half of them fall on ships
of Capital’s Shipping Company (CSC). It’s General Director Dmitry Balykov noted
that the price for a boat ride will remain at last year’s level – 400 roubles
(€10). According to him, 70% of passengers of CSC are Moscow’s guests.
The Brand Manager of Radisson Royal
Flotilla, Olga Tkacheva told us that to five existing yachts, launched in 2009,
two more with better characteristics and capacity will be added in 2012. Thanks
to their technical specifications all the yachts are able to get over the ice,
that’s why they are so used in winter. All year long these yachts depart from
the pier near the hotel Ukraine. Ships cruise regularly according to the timetable,
and also carry out cruises booked for corporate and private events.
Sergey Shpilko informed that tour
operators on river cruises are planning to sell more than 800 cruises
navigating from Moscow
and back; about 170 people will be its participants. The Director on Domestic
Tourism of Vodokhod Company, Andrey Smolin added that from 120 ships which
cruise along Russia’s
rivers, more than 40 are operated in Moscow
region. They
are new and the most comfortable ships.
According to Mr. Shpilko, Moscow Tourism
Committee actively promotes river cruises within Moscow’s general advertising campaign on
Russian and foreign markets. “This year we will be advertising Moscow at 26 international and domestic
travel trade fairs, in the network of data-and-advertising telecasts at Russian
and international TV channels, in more than dozen printed media, in Russian
press, at the city’s travel portal. In more than 20 cities of Russia tour
operators' road-shows will be held and within each of them there will be
presentation of the capital and meeting with agencies. We applied effort to be
able to offer price attractive product – a weekend for just several thousand roubles.
We can see that there is the demand. The number of Moscow's inbound tour operators is growing thanks
to the outbound travel companies entering the business. We also plan to produce
an eight language guide-book about Moscow
being the center of cruises and river sailing”, - noted Mr. Shpilko.