Tour Operators Comment on Growing Tourist Flow to Italian Ski Resorts
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In the company ‘Ertzog’ the growth of skiing tour sales for the Italian destination is currently 50-60%, Tourism Director Svetlana Yermolaeva told TRN.
She failed to explain the reason for such a spike, but she did not rule out the possibility that the increase could have come from the inflow of the former clients of ‘Ascent Travel’, which recently went bankrupt.
According to her, the resorts that are leading in sales are Val di Fassa, Val di Fiemme, Val Gardena and Sestriere. For its tours ‘Ertzog’ uses charter flights to Verona and Turin.
According to Maksim Pristavko, Deputy General Director of the tour operator ‘Jet Travel’, which also makes use of the flights to these cities, the company saw only a slight increase in demand. He told TRN that the reason for that was the increase in the rate of the euro against the ruble.
"It is hard to determine which resort is leading in sales. Those that are at the forefront are Val di Fassa, Cervinia, and Sestriere," said Pristavko.
It has been two years since operator TEZ Tour started working with the Italian ski destination.Its General Director Vladimir Kaganer says that there are no fluctuations in the sales, and bookings do not go beyond one or two weeks; compared to the same period of the previous year the growth is 10-15%.
"I do not think that early booking, which we introduced back in September, paid off. Mountain skiers prefer to lie in wait for the best deals right up till the last moment," he said.
Last year Val di Fassa, the most popular Italian resort, was the absolute champion among all the European ski resorts.
In a rating compiled by the marketing agency Proalps and based on the Russian arrivals statistic for Alpine resorts, Val di Fassa left behind the long-standing leaders – Austrian resorts Mayrhofen and Soelden – and for the first time ever took the first place (about 17 thousand Russian arrivals).
The fourth position in the rating was taken by another Italian resort – Val Gardena (11.6 thousand Russian arrivals). Other resorts that exhibited steady growth of tourist flow were Alta Badia, Kronplatz and Livigno.
“During the past few years an increasing number of Russian tourists have been coming to Italian resorts, the most popular of which cemented its position as the leader in 2013,” spokesman for Proalps Roman Tyulyakov commented on the rating results.
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