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Is Cuba to take Egypt’s place?

08:07, 9 февраля 2012

Russia along with Argentina turned out to be the leaders of the inbound tourist flow to Cuba in 2011. It was actually a record year for Cuba – 2.7 million foreign tourists. Guardian, with reference to international experts, says that 2012 may be even more successful for tourism, before the country encounters the lack of organization and management in their travel industry.

 

Cuban authorities still have high hopes for the Russian market. And there’s a reason for that: the tourist flow from Russia grew by almost 40% in 2011 and amounted to more than 70 thousand people. This data was provided by Cuban Ministry of Tourism’s representative in Russia. For comparison: in 2009 there were 37 thousand of our tourists, in 2010 – already 56 thousand. According to preliminary forecasts, the Liberty Island will be visited by at least 90 thousand Russian tourists in 2012.

Estefania Eskobar, Head of the Russian office of Cuban Ministry of Tourism, thinks the current tourist boom is only natural: “Last year we had many advertisement campaigns. Also a lot of new flights between our countries have recently been launched: from Moscow there are five flights by Aeroflot each week and two services by Transaero, and from Saint-Petersburg there’s a Transaero flight every 10 days”.

 

Russian tourists prefer beaches and guided tours, in particular tours of Havana, Fidel Castro and Hemingway museums, and rum and cigar museums. Diving and eco-tourism are also getting more attention from our tourists every year.

Russian tour operators explain the interest towards Cuba by the constantly growing number of flights to this destination. But air transportation that is not supported by demand leads to dumping of prices on the market. “From mid January to February, which qualifies as the high season in Cuba, the demand is way lower than the supply. So instead of flying empty jets back and forth, carriers have to introduce special offers to get at least some money back”, - explains Elena Konkina, tour manager at ITC.

 

And, according to the expert, many tourists chose Cuba instead of Egypt, so the dumping of the overall tour price was timely. For instance, a 12-day tour for two adults with accommodation at a 2-star hotel costs from 90 thousand roubles. “2-3 star hotels are being booked much more often than 4-5-star hotels. The tourists also try to save on the flights, so they wait until the last moment to get a hot deal. All this is of course affecting the income of operators”, - noted Mrs. Konkina.

Marina Mitkina, Head of the Caribbean department at Russian Express told that 2011 can really be qualified as the best year for Cuba out of the last five, but that only applies to the summer period. “A couple of years earlier the summer tourist flow was even less than that of winter. Now they are almost identical. And air service during summer is more balanced, so that rules out the price dumping”, - she stated.

 

According to experts, the number of flights could be reduced during wintertime – that would only help the market. Operators are expecting the next wave of interest towards Cuba to rise in late March or in April.

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