Europe’s leading tour operators
TUI Travel и Thomas Cook are not satisfied with the development of their
business in Russia.
Within the first six months of the present financial year that began in October
2011, TUI Travel got an operating loss in Russia
and Ukraine
which amounted to ?13 million; it’s almost twice as much as a year ago. At the
same time whole group’s operating loss increased by only 3%, reaching ?317
million.
As declared by TUI Russia &
CIS, the main cause for such losses is the unstable situation in Egypt which negatively affected the company’s
sales in Russia.
It’s interesting that as opposite to Russia,
the company positive results in selling Egypt
on the markets of Scandinavia and Great Britain. It’s not ruled out
that Russia
will recover as well. Judging by May holidays, the demand for Egypt is
resuscitated, sales turned out to go as expected.
Thomas Cook Company didn’t show
serious results in Russia
yet: The company says that Russia,
along with Canada and France, is
among those countries where business develops worse than forecasted. Same as
TUI, the company blames Egypt
for its troubles and plans to indemnify the losses on this destination using
more professional management. “Recently we started changes in management and
transferred Russian business to the control of the managing team on Central
Europe which developed an action plan of reduction of side effects”, - says the
statement of the European operator.
According to the agreement with
AFK “System” that controls VAO Intourist, if by the end of 2012 the joint
venture receives EBITDA less than $15 million, Thomas Cook will be able to
return up to $15 million of transaction amount – either money or safety stock
of the joint venture.
Apparently, foreign investors
are not yet ready to give up hopes for the Russian market. As reported by both
companies, holding such large-scale events in Russia as the Sochi Olympics in
2014 and the football world Cup in 2018 is a good prospect for tourist
business.
