This Is How Belarusian Travel Industry Spent Summer

• 11.10.2021, 8:19

The market collapsed.

Summer is over, and the Belarusians and the Market newspaper decided to find out what it was like for the Belarusian tourists and travel agencies.

Representatives of the travel industry reported where the Belarusians had flown and travelled and what surprises can wait the industry in the near future.

Andrei Barashka, international tourism economist, director of the travel portal of Belarus "Holiday.by":

- In order to figure out which destinations were popular among Belarusian tourists, we may take a look at the internal statistical report of the Holiday.by portal for the three summer months of 2021.

Rating by the number of search queries about the countries and "destinations" in the portal search engine is as follows:

1. Turkey. 2. Egypt. 3. Georgia. 4. Ukraine. 5. Russia. 6. UAE. 7. Crimea. 8. Belarus. 9. Montenegro. 10. Albania.

Here it is worth noting that the Crimea, Tenerife, Abkhazia in the statistics historically do not go within countries, but as separate destinations.

Andrei Barashka noted that the demand for tours to Georgia this year was not only caused by the air blockade:

- I must say that this year Georgia was among the first countries, which began to remove covid restrictions, and many people headed there on their own, regardless of whether there is a charter flight or not. The price reduction for scheduled flights, which was announced by Belavia, could also rouse the demand.

"If you take sections "domestic/external" for the calendar summer, 40% of visitors were interested in outbound tourism, 60% - in domestic tourism. Prior to 2020, the proportions were 60/40, that is opposite," said Andrei Barashka.

The top 10 districts of Belarus over the summer, according to statistics from the portal, are as follows: 1. Minsk. 2. Braslau. 3. Miadzel. 4. Vileika. 5. Staubtsy. 6. Asipovichy. 7. Hlubokaye. 8. Dziarzhynsk. 9. Lahoisk. 10. Pastavy.

The top 10 attractions of the summer: 1. The Litouka estate near Navahrudak. 2. Lake Svitsiaz. 3. The Blue Spring near Slauharad. 4. The Church of the Holy Trinity in Hiarviaty. 5. The chalk pits near Vaukavysk. 6. The chalk pits near Hrodna. 7. The Chygirynskaye Reservoir. 8. The Mayak mountain on the Braslau lakes. 9. The Sula history park. 10. Lake Belaye.

Ruslan Serheniuk, chairman of the Republican Union of Tourist Organizations:

- The summer season is not over yet, the flight programs continue till the end of October. However, we can already say that this year has been much worse for the tourism industry in Belarus than the last one. The main reason is the ban for the Belarusian airlines to fly in the airspace of the EU and use the European airports.

This summer, the number of available direct vacation destinations from Belarus was minimal. Only four destinations could boast convenient logistics: Georgia, the UAE, Turkey and Egypt. Most tourists travelled to these countries. All other destinations involved long or inconvenient transfers. Only a few thousand tourists went to the EU countries: those who still had European visas and who really wanted to get to Europe, even despite the change of planes in Istanbul or Moscow. Among the relative "exotics" we can mention the "old/new" destination - Jordan - with a direct flight and a couple of thousand tourists.

If in 2019, 900 thousand Belarusians went abroad to rest, then this year, according to the first, approximate, estimates - by 60-70% less. The market has collapsed, and, accordingly, there is no need for a large number of travel agencies. There are not enough customers for everyone. Therefore, last year and this year, first of all, there has been a reduction in the number of travel agents. Since 2019, their number has decreased by 10-30%. There have also been cases of tour operators leaving the market: those who had no luck with open destinations. Most likely, this trend will continue, because there is no prospect for the growth of tourism from Belarus.

The volumes of outbound destinations this year compared with last year are as follows. Turkey shows 10-30% growth, Egypt also shows slight increase and Georgia shows considerable growth. Belarusians have been actively travelling to Georgia for the last ten years, but this summer season has seen a significant growth due to the increased flights to Batumi, as well as to a new flight to Kobuleti, but primarily due to the impossibility to reach the European resorts.

The main highlight of the season was the vacation in the UAE. In summer, the climatic conditions in this region are not quite usual for Belarusians, but the direct flight to Dubai encouraged our tourists, and all the flights were packed. I think this destination has a great prospect, especially as the number of flights to Dubai is increasing and a new flight to Ras Al-Khaim is planned. Besides, I assume that in the near future there will be available options for summer and winter holidays (mountain skiing) in Sochi, so the Belarusians will be going to the Russian resort more often.

Since last year, there has been an obvious increase in domestic tourism. For the most part, it is self-organized or independent tourism: because of the epidemic, Belarusians tend to travel in their cars, go hiking, kayaking. There is a slight increase of Belarusian tourists at iconic historical sites, such as, for example, the Mir and Niasvizh castles. However, in general, since 2020, all these tourist sites have definitely lost tourists, as the number of foreigners, especially Russians, has decreased.

As for the legislation in the tourism industry, nothing has yet become clear. A new law on tourism is still under consideration in the parliament. Perhaps the House of Representatives will send the bill for revision at the autumn session. In addition, recently the action plans concerning integration with Russia were signed, and they also include tourism. I assume that a new history of the Belarusian tourism industry will start here. The legislative bases of the two countries are to be unified. I hope the new document will not be a copy of the Russian legislation. I would like our legislators to pay attention to the experience of their Russian colleagues and take it into account when working out a new law on tourism.

The fact is that the Russian tourist market is very different from the Belarusian one, and not only in size. Russia has mountains, seas, thousands of tour operators and tens of thousands of travel agencies for 150 million tourists. Russians can compensate with domestic tourism almost all foreign destinations. We have nothing like that. Inbound tourism is certainly a priority development objective for any country, but it is necessary to realize that in conditions of pandemic these plans are, to put it mildly, difficult to implement. The domestic market is something the authorities should finally pay attention to. And Belarus shouldn't be biased only towards domestic or inbound tourism. Our citizens should have the opportunity to rest at the sea or in the mountains whenever they want. What we should learn from Russia is their program of cashback, which strongly supported Russian domestic tourism during the pandemic.