Russian Cruise Industry Experiencing Significant Increase

Russian Cruise Industry Experiencing Significant Increase

Several positive trends have been noted in river cruises in Russian tourist industry. According to tourism experts, sales have increased by 30 percent, and the tourist flow has improved by 20-25 percent compared to the previous year.

This year, the demand for Russian river cruises is influenced by several factors. The following are the key factors: the economic crisis and consecutively the fall in effective demand in 2009 as well as the depreciation of Euro against Ruble, due to which there is a decrease of potential tourists from Europe in the cruise industry. As a result, the season has not caused an increase in costs of river cruises over the past year, and this led to a sharp jump in sales volume.

However, in the last two years the demand for river cruises in Russia has decreased. In 2009, the European demand sank an average of 9 percent, and so far has been slow to recover. The greatest blow of the crisis fell on the flow from the U.S., which decreased by about 50 percent last year.

As for the sea cruises, at the beginning of the summer the segment began to show steady growth in the number of bookings. Experts estimate that the flow of tourists has risen by about 70 percent compared to the same period last year, and sales start at 3 and end with a record 14 months. The result was possible because of the pent-up demand last year, when most tourists chose a very low-budget accommodation on cruise ships or when they prefer other types of recreation.