Last year, of the 2,50,000 Russian tourists nearly 2,00,000 came via charters. After charters initially began in 2003 after tour operators started chartering planes to send people to various destinations, many – a – times flights were coming in with vacant seats, so tour operators started selling seats even below the cost price. This led to a price war and ultimately packages were being sold for as little as $ 500 for a 10 day’s stay including airfares, airport pick up and drop, stay and food. This led to companies literally bleeding and finally becoming bankrupt.
Till now 70 percent of the Russian tourists used come by charters and 30 per cent came as FITs (free independent tourists). However, the recent crisis was exacerbated by the free falling Rouble which dropped from 32 to 41 roubles against the dollar from one season to another.
According to Ekatarina Belakova of Tara tours, now the ratio of Russian charter tourists versus FITs is 50 – 50.
However, initially, though Russians tourists used to come to Goa because they wanted to, today, many come because it is the cheapest destination available.
According to the tour operators, to travel cost within Russia itself – for example to Crimea, it would take double the amount compared to a trip to Goa.
“Because several large tour operators have ceased operations in Russia in the past three months, more tourists will be flying to Goa on their own without buying a tour package,” Belyakova told media Friday, hastening to add that despite the slight decrease in overall arrivals from Russia that are expected, Goa is becoming less popular among Russians.
The Russian Information Centre is trying to facilitate the understanding of cultures between India and Russia. “The biggest reason for conflicts is language – almost 90 percent,” says Anastasia Goryov, editor of a Russian magazine and Russian teacher. “Russians don’t know English and locals don’t know Russian. This leads to a conflict situation.”
Visa on arrival would increase the tourist arrivals by at least 30 percent. This is because of the size of the country. “If the Russian tourist is from Moscow or St Petersburg, it is okay. But besides that, visas have to be sent by post. It is a lot of trouble,” says Belakova, arguing that the present system of travel documents has not worked as the Russian tourist had to surrender their passport and most are not willing to do so given that they were being asked to surrender the document to some strange person.
