The coronavirus situation, first recorded in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has seriously affected the tourism business in a number of countries. Both incoming and outgoing companies operating in the Chinese direction have suffered. At the same time, according to experts interviewed According to the TRN portal, the business segment remains relatively stable.
Let us recall that at the end of last week, Rostourism published a message in which it called on travelers not to go to China, and tour operators to suspend sales of tours to this destination until the epidemiological situation normalizes. In turn, China has imposed travel restrictions for its citizens, which is why, according to forecasts, Russian host companies will lose about 90 thousand of their clients from China.
At the same time, as experts note, if organized tourists have virtually no choice left, since the largest players have cancelled all planned import flights, then those who travel to China for work can still do so without any restrictions.
"December and January are, in principle, a period of reduced demand for business trips. Despite the current situation with China, we have not registered any cancellations. Moreover, the flights that were supposed to take place at the end of January, they took place. Cancellations should be expected more from tour operators who fly to places where tourists vacation en masse. Also, for business travel companies, the geography is determined by the composition of corporate clients. We do not form special packages to China, but serve the needs of our clients who have an interest in a particular area of geography," notes BTM CEO Pavel Vasin.
The fact that business tourists are in no hurry to give up their trips to China is also evidenced by Head of the company "Vipservice" Dmitry Gorin.
"There are certain recommendations from Rostourism that need to be heeded, but flights are now being operated regularly. As part of a tourist trip, if it is a package, the operator must cancel it without a penalty for the client. As for business trips, from the activity of purchasing air tickets, we can say that clients are adjusting the dates of visiting China and rescheduling them for later dates. In each individual case, a person decides independently whether to fly or not," he said.
In turn, Travelsmart reported mass cancellations. “Most companies that had tickets booked have cancelled their trips. Even though most of these tickets were issued at non-refundable rates, airlines have allowed forced refunds due to this difficult situation in China. Business travel has definitely reduced trips for an indefinite period until there is clarity. The volume of trips will now be reduced dramatically,” he noted. General Director of Travelsmart Ivan Samoshin.
In general, it is already obvious that the coronavirus has had a noticeable impact and will continue to have an impact on the work of companies engaged in tourism, trade and transport. By the way, independent tourists, despite the fact that there are no restrictions for them, in some cases refuse to travel to China.
“According to the Superkassa service, since the introduction of quarantine in China, the number of sales of air tickets to cities in China has decreased by 20%,” notes business analyst company Anastasia Bondarchuk.
Source: trn-news.ru
