Tourist market of Russia is consolidating: tour operators remain with their airlines
On August 29, 2017, the Supervisory Board of the Association “Association of Tour Operators in the Field of Outbound Tourism “TurpoHelp” considered the applications of six Russian tour operators on exclusion from the members of the Association and return of funds from the personal liability fund in connection with the termination of tour operator activities in the field of outbound tourism.
Applications were filed by INNA TOUR LLC, DSBV-TURS-GROUP LLC (DBSW), presented in the tourist market of Yekaterinburg, as well as EKIP-2M LLC, City Reservation and Tourism Center Management Company LLC (GTSBIT Management Company), Akvalang Travel LLC and BALTURAS LLC. According to Olga Gulyar, director of the Winter-Summer group of companies, the situation indicates the consolidation of the Russian tourism market.
At the beginning of the year, it became known that major tour operators are reducing the amount of commissions for their partners – agencies in order to optimize costs. In addition, they spend large amounts of money on cooperation with partners in host countries, on charter rentals and the necessary insurance contributions to funds. The largest players in the market today are working on acquiring ownership of both host companies and airlines in order to ease the financial burden as much as possible. Those who cannot afford it will gradually withdraw from the market.”
Within 30 days, starting from August 30, registers of unfulfilled obligations of tour operators who submitted applications to third parties will be formed (the Association is ready to accept relevant applications from third parties). If all obligations are fulfilled, the companies will return funds from the personal liability fund of the tour operator.
In early 2017, major domestic tour operators, including Biblio Globus and Sunmar, reduced the amount of commission fees to agencies to 6-7% for foreign destinations and to 8-9% for Russian ones.
Photograph: forum.topwar