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Egypt plays into the hands of other destinations

08:07, 7 февраля 2011

Despite numerous warnings not many tourists that already received all documents necessary for the pre-paid trip to Egypt cancel the trip. They arrive to the airports and register for the flights. Yesterday, for example, we “controlled” flights to Egyptian resorts from nine cities of our country. Eight of them were filled up to 50%, this figure corresponds to the annulations rate on the market, and one flight from Krasnoyarsk to Sharm El Sheikh departed with full load.

Touroperators do not see any possibility to stave off these trips. The trips are paid for, the flights are operated, registration works. You can’t force tourists out of the aircrafts. Just for your information, according to the data of one of the touroperators there are flights to Sharm from 27 Russian cities, to Hurghada – from 21 Russian cities. There are 16 flights per week from Ekaterinburg only.

Many touroperators immediately return the money to those tourists whose flight was planned for the earliest dates. There are individual offers for other travelers, either change of the dates of the trip or a new destination. Some agree to change the dates, but the majority choose another destination. The tourists prefer visa-free countries, like Thailand, Dubai, Goa, Hainan, there is a demand for the Maldives and the Dominican Republic. Of course an extra charge is needed because there is no identical alternative to Egypt.

Very touching is that the tourists arriving to the Egyptian resorts immediately send sms-messages to their travel agents confirming that they arrived well and the situation is quiet. Almost everyone writes the same. It’s a pity that nobody knows how the situation will progress.

The packages to Egypt are not sold. This sounds lethal in regards to the most popular winter destination. Though we can’t vouch for all touroperators and  there are still some requests. The requests are put on hold for an indefinite period. And the travel agencies get a lot of calls with a question if the prices for the packages to Egypt already went down and what’s the discount.

Most of the touroperators are calculating the losses. Advance investments into winter Egypt program usually amount up to $ 3 mio. Intensity of package sales that were realized before Egypt unrest started reached end of March. There are a few packages sold for April and May. Some companies have up to 15 – 20 thousand tourists that bought tours with departure till end of March. If the situation does not change the clients will be forced to cancel the trips. Cumulative costs of sold packages reach $ 12 – 14 mio per large touroperator. If the trips are canceled the touroperator would loose profit of minimum $360-420 thousand (2 – 3% of the sales turnover). And can you imagine the impact if all tourists demand full refund of canceled trips? Plus refund of the current cancellations. And nobody knows if the payments done to the airlines, Egyptian hotels etc. are paid back.

Surprisingly the market began earning on the problems of Egypt.  Weak Israel suddenly revived. Yesterday one touroperator said that last Saturday they got 24 requests at once, before there were not more than 5 – 6 per day.

Of-season Antalya became popular too, though only 5* hotels are open at the moment there. The sea is of course cold, but it is well substituted by various swimming pools, some with heated sea water. And the weather is nice. Touroperators selling Turkish destinations consider possibilities of organizing extra flights to Turkey.

There are also a lot of bookings for the Dominican Republic, Sri Lanka, Hainan and even Brazil.

The prices for “alternative” destinations of course grow. The law of conservation of business: if there is a decline somewhere other site is definitely on the  rise.

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