Top 20 outsider destinations of 2014 summer season
Travel Russian News and online travel agency Pososhok.ru are continuing their collaboration "L
Coming in at number one is, to nobody's surprise, Odessa, or, to be more precise, the Moscow-Odessa destination. This season, compared to 2013, its drop in popularity has been 97%.
Second place – Moscow-Sevastopo
The next five outsiders are: Moscow-Kaliningr
The bottom ten starts with Moscow–Rostov-on
Other destinations that have also suffered considerable losses this season include Berlin, Riga, Barcelona, Tivat and Tel Aviv.
According to Yelena Zimina, CEO of Pososhok.ru, the setbacks on Ukrainian destinations came as a surprise to no one.
"Due to the worsening the political situation, Russians have all but given up on the tourist trips to the country, and this trend will probably last for many years to come. "Belbek" Sevastopol International Airport is not operating at the moment, with all flights to Crimea arriving at Simferopol Airport. Nothing surprising there. As for Russian resorts, they have suffered losses due to Crimea attracting a lot of tourist flow," says the expert.
She says that the reason the rating included Greek destinations is that the majority of tourists traveling to Greece prefer the islands that have their own airports, to which charter flights are already being organized. "Last year there were a lot of special offers and deals available for tours to European cities, so people were eager to fly there. Now, such offers are extremely few and far between, and, coupled with the difficulties with getting a British visa and the rise in euro exchange rate, this has virtually destroyed sales for these destinations.
Russia’s Kaliningrad and Yekaterinburg destinations have also suffered because of airlines discontinuing all the special tariffs that they were offering last year. In addition, the average price of an air ticket, without any special offers, has grown 15-20%, which has greatly affected sales," added Yelena Zimina.