Egypt: Ambitions of Tour Operators Provoked Excess of Flights to The Destination

[IMG=21186-7023]Travel market experts say that at the moment air traffic volume to both main Egyptian resorts – Sharm-el-Sheikh and Hurgada exceeds the market demand by 10 flights per week. Thus, at the same period of 2005 30-40 charters to Egypt were operated on a weekly basis, while at the moment the number of flights is 40-50 charters per week. As a consequence the market is overwhelmed with special offers for tour packages to Egypt. For example, a tour for two people with accommodation in 3* hotel costs $599, while a flight cost is $300. Travel market experts explain the situation by terrorist acts in Turkey that stimulated tourist flow to Egypt. In order to minimize expenses travel companies that specialize in both markets reoriented flights from Antalya to Hurgada and Sharm-el-Sheikh. Rabson Mamedov, General Director of Mostravel, commented that ‘many tour operators after the unsuccessful season in Turkey decided to get the ‘compensation’ in Egypt. However, it’s a different country with fewer hotels. Therefore, the success is possible only in case of favorable concatenation of circumstances’. Moreover, at the end of October Bairam starts – the period is traditionally marked with the reduction of accommodation for foreign tourists in Egypt owing the increasing Egyptian tourist flow. Furthermore, travel market experts emphasize that increase of air traffic to Egypt was a rash decision. Apparently, it should have been done earlier, immediately after terrorist acts in Turkey. Gennady Kosarev, General Director of Fresh Travel, said: ‘it is a low season at present; therefore, the market went down’. Given the current situation travel market players do not rush into making forecasts for winter and announce further charter plans. Mikhail Ioffe, Head of the Egyptian Department of Tourenergoservice, stated as follows: ‘the situation changes every week. Consolidators of flights to Egypt act upon these changes deciding whether to terminate a flight or combine it with another charter’. Moreover, the majority of tour operators have all year round charter programs that are extended in autumn. As a rule, they prefer to co-operate with the same airlines. Thus, TEZ TOUR continues co-operation with Atlant-Soyuz, Transaero, Airlines – 400; Mostravel – with Atlant-Soyuz and VIM-avia; Pegas Touristik – with VIM-avia and S7 Ailines; Coral Travel – with Atlant-Soyuz, BACO and VIM-avia. A propos, the launch of a charter flight to Luxor was decided to be postponed. Alexey Sergeechev, Vice-president of IntAir, explained: ‘November holidays that have not been in demand in the recent years are followed by ‘hard time’ for Egypt. Considering these factors we made a decision to launch the charter program to Luxor at the end of December’.