Vzglyad: Russia is replacing Turkey with Egypt as a new destination for its tourists
After the lockdown of Turkey, which is one of the Russian mass tourism destinations, Russia has opened another low-cost beachfront direction for Russians, towards Egypt’s resorts.
Charter flights to the Red Sea resorts in Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh were banned in November 2015 after a Russian plane exploded in the sky over the Sinai Peninsula.
Moscow demanded to ensure the safety of Russian aircraft at Egyptian airports.
Therefore, in order to allow the flights, Egypt had to offer Russia in addition to the safety guarantees from the Coronavirus, a safety of another level altogether, which is flight safety.
The situation of the Coronavirus in Turkey is objectively worse than in Egypt.
As for the other safety, Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh airports have undergone a deep modernization and have been equipped with modern control and security systems, and the airport employees have undergone additional training, a source confirmed to Russian Interfax news agency.
Moreover, Russian flights will be operated in special wings, where aviation security specialists from one of the Russian airports will monitor safety measures along with their Egyptian counterparts, after the signing of an agreement between these two institutions in the two countries.
While tours to Egypt in 2019 represented 2% of TEZ Tour sales, they now account for 45%.
According to Tez Tour General Manager, Voscan Arzumanov, Aeroflot’s increase in the number of flights to Cairo had a beneficial effect on the price of the ticket there.
“Tour operators are already attracting Russian tourists to Egypt with huge discounts,” said Natalia Zaitsova, a professor in the Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Industry at the Russian Plekhanov University of Economics.
But Zaitsova does not exclude that the demand for trips to Egypt, in the context of Turkey’s closure and the sharp rise in prices in Russian resorts, is so great that the prices of trips to Egypt may not return to their known levels, but may even rise as well.
