Will Winter Egypt Follow the Summer Turkey?

[IMG=20802-6575]On August 24th the international airport Domodedovo held a traditional forum called New Routes aimed at representatives of airlines and tour operating companies. Before negotiations, tendencies of Moscow travel market development based on the statistics of charter flights from Dmodedovo and other Moscow airports, were presented. The current statistics confirmed, for example, drop in demand for Turkey and the increased interest in European destinations. According to data of Domodedovo, air traffic volume to Greece and Croatia in summer 2006 has increased by 37% and to Czech Republic - by 42% comparing to last year fıgures. Furthermore, air traffic volume to Spain and Italy has grown by 18 and 15% correspondingly. Vladimir Kaminin from Marketing Service of Domodedovo, belives that the current tendencies can be explained by shift in priorıties towards less 'popular' countries. According to Kaminin, the tendency might continue in the winter season and mass-market Egypt might play a low-down trick with tour operators. Meanwhile, touroperators divided opinions towards the forecasts for the winter season. Thus, Alexey Fadeev, General Director of Nord, believes situation on the Egyptian destination in winter will depend on such factors as, for example, European markets behavior - there was a drop in demand in Europe for the region as soon as the war between Israel and Lebanon started. If the European demand recovers, Egyptian incoming companies will not provide discounts for Russian tour operators. Anatoly Garkushin, the Head of Pantheon, also outlined the price factor: 'in winter demand might shift towards more exotic destinations, but only in case if tourpackages to there will be at the same price level as ones to Egypt'. Furthermore, an anonimous expert pointed out: 'there wıll be always an excess of offers to Egypt, especially in the coming season. Large trour operators will try to compensate for Turkey and will consequently launch an unprecidented number of flights to Egypt'.