In encouraging news from Russia’s ratanews.ru, the upcoming fall and winter seasons are set to prove more successful for Egyptian tourism.
The report states that the 2024-2025 winter season is expected to surpass the previous one, which had been impacted by the Gaza conflict and insufficient transportation.
Most of the tours for the autumn months have already been sold out in some companies.
According to tour operators, sales have grown by more than 40 percent compared to the same period in 2023.
Tour operators are now actively working to increase chartered flights to the country. Anex and Intourist are expanding their flight programs from the end of November 2024 to March 2025, covering 12 cities in Russia instead of the previous seven.
Fun&Sun has also increased its flight program – on September 5, their tourists traveled to Sharm El-Sheikh on an EgyptAir flight.
The airline will operate flights to this resort twice a week from Moscow, and once a week from St. Petersburg, at the request of the tour operator, until October 29, and then twice weekly.
The program is expected to continue until the end of March.
In a first, Space Travel has purchased a large block of seats on Red Sea Airlines’ chartered flights from Moscow to Sharm El-Sheikh for the fall and winter seasons, from mid-September to March 2025.
Coral Travel also plans to expand its flight program, and approvals are currently underway. Eighty percent of autumn tours have already been sold, and demand for winter trips remains high.
Hotels are offering very good prices for stays in December – for example, a week in a superior room at a five-star all-inclusive hotel in Hurghada starting from December 6 will cost 156,000 rubles for two people, including flights, and in a five-star hotel in Sharm, from 147,000 rubles,” said the company’s head of PR, Marina Makarkova.
According to Makarkova, there are also profitable promotions from popular hotels.
“For example, when booking standard tours with a flight on Coral Travel group seats to Rixos hotels in Egypt until the end of September, tourists receive a free individual transfer from the airport and back until October 31,” she clarified.
And the general director of the Last Minute Travel Store chain, Sergey Agafonov, is confident that the flexible policy of Egyptian hotels and affordable prices are one of the factors in the growth of tour sales to the destination.
“Thanks to this, demand for Egypt remains stable throughout the year. Even the last winter season can still be considered very successful, despite the background of negative information regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the limitation of some modes of transportation, which led to an increase in prices on the road. This season promises more stability,” he said.
According to the International Human Rights Law Network Index, Egypt’s sales in the past three months, the peak season, have consistently accounted for 15-16 percent of the total.
In comparison, Thailand represents slightly less than 10 percent, and the United Arab Emirates 5.2 percent.
Agafonov believes that all proposed transportation options will be needed, adding that they will see how sales to the destination will begin to grow as the season approaches.
However, Egypt’s prices are much lower than other destinations that Russians choose for beach vacations in the fall and winter. Most of all, the flight to Egypt is shorter compared to Southeast Asian countries, and it boasts a large number of hotels.
There are nearly 1,330 hotels in Egypt, a third of which are five-star, and more new hotels from distinguished chains such as Rixos, are being opened.
The marketing director of the online travel agency Travelata.ru, Oleg Kozyrev, confirmed: “The volume of bookings for Egyptian resorts is now 43 percent higher than the same period last year.”
The most popular destination in this country is Sharm El-Sheikh, he said, adding that 55 percent of all those who bought tours from his company plan to visit there.
The average bill for this vacation is 219,000 rubles. Hurghada ranks second, and its volume has slightly increased this year from 31 percent to 34 percent, and the average bill has increased from 175,000 to 210,000 rubles for a tour for two people.
Other popular resorts include Makadi, Sahl Hasheesh, and Soma Bay.
Russian tourists in Egypt mostly book stays in five-star hotels, and this year the demand for such vacations is increasing. The percentage of tourists choosing the most expensive hotels is now 59 percent, compared to 52 percent a year ago.
All-inclusive hotels are the best-selling.
In the Sletat.ru group of companies, Egypt’s share in total sales for the fall and winter seasons has increased from seven percent to 17 percent, and the average bill is about 223,000 rubles.
Simultaneously, more than half of the orders also come from five-star hotels – their share has increased from 54 percent during the same period last year to 61 percent this year.
According to the border department of the Russian Federal Security Service, up to 532,000 Russian citizens visited Egypt in the first half of the year for tourism purposes.
This is 15 percent more than in the same period last year.
According to Egyptian statistics, 380,000 Russians spent their vacations in Hurghada alone from January to August.
