Over 150 St. Petersburg tourism professionals attended events as part of the traditional Cruise Festival, organized on February 20 by the Tourism Business publishing house at several venues at the Emerald Hotel in St. Petersburg.
According to established tradition, the Festival Representatives of leading cruise companies in the river and sea tourism sector took part in the cruises, including Costa Cruises, Infoflot, Via Maris, PAC Group, NIKA, Cruise House, Vodohod, Atlantis Line, Poseidon Expeditions, Soleans Travel, Petersburg Cruises, and several others.
At the same time, festival participants introduced guests to a full range of information on all types of river, lake, and sea cruises—from widely sought-after weekend cruises to yacht trips and expedition cruises in the Arctic and Antarctic.
The festival included a workshop for specialists, training seminars on cruise sales techniques and modern information technology, a series of master classes, presentations, and express training sessions from participating companies, and the highlight of the day was a panel discussion on trends in the sea and river cruise market, attended by several experts.
According to statistics, the global cruise tourism market has grown by 601,000,000 rubles over the past 10 years, with 24 large ships scheduled to launch this year alone. Russian specialists also confirm the industry's undeniable growth: according to experts participating in the St. Petersburg discussion, sales in this segment increased by 20,000,000,000 rubles in 2018, and there is confidence that this trend will continue.
For example, Alexey Golovanov, head of PAC GROUP's St. Petersburg office, stated that his company sent approximately 32,000 Russians on sea cruises in 2018 and intends to reach 100,000 in the coming years.
Ekaterina Ilyushina, a representative of Costa Cruises, agreed that this segment of tourism is “developing at a very rapid pace.”
"In the next five years, about 70 huge ships will be launched, which need to be filled with passengers every week, and therefore cruise lines are paying close attention to markets with room for growth, including Russia," she noted. "It's possible that Russia will eventually become the number one market."
In turn, Lyudmila Guralnik, Marketing Director of MK Cruise House, confirmed that growth is real and quite significant. "Our company's cruise sales volumes increased by approximately 401,000 rubles last year," she said. "And the prospects for the development of this segment are truly optimistic."
Andrey Mikhailovsky, CEO of Infoflot Cruise Center, assured those gathered of similar developments in the river cruise industry: despite the challenges, he said, volume growth in this segment in 2018 amounted to 151,000 rubles.
At the same time, experts noted that, in absolute terms, cruise tourism in Russia is still not very large. In the sea segment, this figure is up to 200,000 people per year (which is less than 11,300 of all cruisers worldwide), and in the river segment, it is around 400,000, which, compared to global achievements, appears roughly the same.
The reasons? "When it comes to sea cruises, there's still a stereotype that they're vacations for the rich," says Ekaterina Ilyushina. "But in reality, this has long been the case, and a quality sea cruise can sometimes even be purchased for less than a similar land cruise."
Lyudmila Guralnik believes that agents are somewhat underperforming, sometimes lacking in knowledge and sometimes being hesitant to offer cruise vacations. "Often, this isn't because cruises are difficult to sell, but because the agent lacks complete information," she stated.
Andrei Mikhailovsky said that “when a client comes into the office and immediately asks not for Turkey, but for a cruise, then big sales will begin.”
At the same time, both he and other experts are convinced that, despite the best efforts of operators and cruise lines, the end consumer and the Russian travel agent in general are not well informed about all the benefits of cruising. Therefore, often out of ignorance, tourists continue to choose traditional land-based vacations.
Regarding the complex market issue of sales volumes through agents and directly (including online), the discussion revealed that the cruise industry remains a kind of agency stronghold, as the overwhelming majority of tours are still sold through intermediaries, and online sales have almost no overlap with their interests.
At the conclusion of the St. Petersburg portion of the Cruise Festival, a raffle was held with prizes from the event's participants and partners. Many guests were able to win exciting gifts, including cruises.
As a reminder, this coming Wednesday, February 27, the Cruise Festival will take place in Moscow at the Marriott Novy Arbat Hotel.
Source: trn-news.ru
