A variety of new international routes have been launched to attract Russian and CIS holidaymakers and potential property buyers.
The national carrier of the UAE, Ethiad Airways, has launched new flights from the country to Russia and Kazakhstan, and increased the frequency of its flights to London, Sydney, India, Kuwait and Damascus.
The flagship routes of its new schedule are the direct flights from Abu Dhabi to Moscow and the Kazakh city of Almaty - beginning on the 1st and 2nd of December respectively. “With the additional routes, we remain on track to hit our target of flying six million passengers by the end of this year,” said James Hogan, Ethiad’s chief executive.
Two of Russia’s major airlines have also announced the launch of new routes and will start flying to the Dominican Republic as of spring next year as demand grows for such a service.
Airlines Transaero and Rossya will fly from Moscow and St Petersburg to Punta Cana and Puerto Plata, respectively, by March 2009 and this is expected to double the number of Russian tourists the Caribbean country receives each year.
The Punta Cana Life Realty Agency has already noticed an increase in Russian buyers and has employed Russian speaking staff to handle the sales. Some 40% of the agency's transactions in the last three months have been to Russian investors.
"Several planes land here every week with Russians onboard," said the firm's MD, Jocelyn Hernandez Irizzary. "They have quite a high expendable income compared to the tourist that travels on an all-inclusive package."
In South-East Asia, national carrier Vietnam Airlines has made public its intentions to increase the number of flights to Moscow from Ho Chi Minh, from four times weekly to a daily service. The news comes as the Vietnamese government looks to ban visa requirements for Russian tourists in the near future. Meanwhile, Finnair have introduced a new weekly route from Helsinki to the central Ural town of Yekaterinburg.
Tourism trends.
The launches come as Russian tourists increase the number of trips they are taking abroad every year.
According to tourism authorities, the number of Russians wishing to receive an international passport is growing by 12% y-o-y, and in 2007 over five million received their new international passport.
Data released by Rogosstrakh, the country’s largest insurer, found that some 12,164,000 Russian tourists have travelled or booked to head abroad this year, with China (2.58m), Turkey (1.91m), Egypt (1.73m) and Finland (1.23m) the most visited destinations. Singapore, which only received 42,000 Russian holiday and business visitors in 2008, is predicted to see the highest rise in tourists next year (33.7%), followed by Mexico (30.9%), Cuba (26%) and Croatia (25.2%). The insurer said that the number of Russians heading overseas in 2009 is expected to rise 13.8% to 13,840,000.
The national carrier of the UAE, Ethiad Airways, has launched new flights from the country to Russia and Kazakhstan, and increased the frequency of its flights to London, Sydney, India, Kuwait and Damascus.
The flagship routes of its new schedule are the direct flights from Abu Dhabi to Moscow and the Kazakh city of Almaty - beginning on the 1st and 2nd of December respectively. “With the additional routes, we remain on track to hit our target of flying six million passengers by the end of this year,” said James Hogan, Ethiad’s chief executive.
Two of Russia’s major airlines have also announced the launch of new routes and will start flying to the Dominican Republic as of spring next year as demand grows for such a service.
Airlines Transaero and Rossya will fly from Moscow and St Petersburg to Punta Cana and Puerto Plata, respectively, by March 2009 and this is expected to double the number of Russian tourists the Caribbean country receives each year.
The Punta Cana Life Realty Agency has already noticed an increase in Russian buyers and has employed Russian speaking staff to handle the sales. Some 40% of the agency's transactions in the last three months have been to Russian investors.
"Several planes land here every week with Russians onboard," said the firm's MD, Jocelyn Hernandez Irizzary. "They have quite a high expendable income compared to the tourist that travels on an all-inclusive package."
In South-East Asia, national carrier Vietnam Airlines has made public its intentions to increase the number of flights to Moscow from Ho Chi Minh, from four times weekly to a daily service. The news comes as the Vietnamese government looks to ban visa requirements for Russian tourists in the near future. Meanwhile, Finnair have introduced a new weekly route from Helsinki to the central Ural town of Yekaterinburg.
Tourism trends.
The launches come as Russian tourists increase the number of trips they are taking abroad every year.
According to tourism authorities, the number of Russians wishing to receive an international passport is growing by 12% y-o-y, and in 2007 over five million received their new international passport.
Data released by Rogosstrakh, the country’s largest insurer, found that some 12,164,000 Russian tourists have travelled or booked to head abroad this year, with China (2.58m), Turkey (1.91m), Egypt (1.73m) and Finland (1.23m) the most visited destinations. Singapore, which only received 42,000 Russian holiday and business visitors in 2008, is predicted to see the highest rise in tourists next year (33.7%), followed by Mexico (30.9%), Cuba (26%) and Croatia (25.2%). The insurer said that the number of Russians heading overseas in 2009 is expected to rise 13.8% to 13,840,000.
Article courtesy of the Overseas Property Professional Magazine
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