Family prices: demand for summer holidays with children has dropped in Russia
Russians have been less willing to plan summer trips with children in recent months: demand for family tours has fallen by 17%, and for children's flights by 30% year—on-year, booking services told Izvestia. Mostly families are going to have a vacation inside the country, especially the Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, Kaliningrad region and Dagestan. Turkey, Egypt, Abkhazia, and the United Arab Emirates are the leaders among foreign countries. There is a growing interest in Kazakhstan, Vietnam and China. Tourists face a shortage of hotels ready to offer comfortable accommodation for both adults and children, as well as the difficulty of buying, for example, train tickets: due to high demand, the purchase of neighboring places becomes a problem, experts noted.
Where are they going with children
Interest in traveling with children this summer turned out to be significantly lower than a year ago, booking services told Izvestia. So, according to the service "Fly.<url>", the demand for such trips with arrivals from the beginning of June to the end of August is almost 17% lower than last year.
The number of flight bookings that include children has decreased by 30% for this summer, said Elena Shelekhova, head of the press service for OneTwoTrip travel planning service, referring to aircraft booking data.
The most noticeable decrease in the share of orders for passengers with children for Turkey follows from the data of the Kupibilet service. Moreover, demand has been declining since 2023, during which time it has fallen by almost a third. In addition, there is a decrease in interest in trips with children to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
63.5% of all applications for trips with children now account for. At the same time, almost 63% of all "children's" bookings are tours within Russia, noted in "Fly.ru". The Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, Kaliningrad and Moscow regions, as well as Dagestan were among the most popular destinations for domestic family tourism.
Among the most popular foreign destinations are Turkey, Egypt, Abkhazia, the United Arab Emirates, China, Thailand, Maldives, Vietnam and Tunisia.
— There is a growing volume of applications for trips with children and summer trips to Thailand, Egypt, the UAE, and Turkey. In addition, there has been a significant increase in bookings of tours with children to China — by 10.4 times, to the Maldives — by five times," the service noted.
Most families travel with children aged 7-12, and the proportion of boys and girls among young tourists is almost evenly distributed.
Among the countries where the interest of travelers with children is growing most noticeably, Yandex Travel also named Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Spain, Italy and France.
The families are also planning to travel to Stavropol Territory, Karelia, Tatarstan and Rostov region in the summer. Among the cities and towns, the interest of travelers with children in Yantarny (Kaliningrad Region), Yeysk (Krasnodar Territory), Koktebel (Crimea), Terskol (Kabardino-Balkaria), Izberbash (Dagestan), Vyborg (Leningrad Region) is growing most noticeably.
Why is demand falling
The decrease in demand for family travel may be due to both economic factors and more careful planning, experts interviewed by Izvestia believe. High interest rates on loans may be affected, said Ekaterina Kosareva, Managing partner of the VMT Consult analytical agency. Many families used to take out loans for vacations, but now it has become unprofitable due to high loan rates, she explained.
— In addition, the cost of air tickets, hotels and even domestic tourism has increased significantly. Families are forced to cut costs by postponing travel for the future or choosing more budget options," she said.
In conditions of financial instability of the family budget, people are starting to save money on entertainment and travel, preferring the upcoming mandatory expenses, added the investor, financial adviser Alexander Kuznetsov.
— The effect of previous years is also affecting. Many actively traveled in 2022-2024, but now they prefer to rest at home or in the country, especially if they have already spent money on trips in the recent past," Ekaterina Kosareva added.
The services also record a general decrease in demand for travel this summer: its level is 8.1% lower than the same period last year.
The trend towards independence
There are not enough hotels in Russia that are ready to offer comfortable accommodation options for families with children, Aleksan Mkrtchyan, Vice President of the Alliance of Travel Agencies (ATA), pointed out.
— There are very few hotels in Russia that can accommodate parents with two or three children in one room. We need to carefully look for options or negotiate the installation of extra beds," he told Izvestia.
Therefore, according to him, large families often rent apartments or apartments on their own, bypassing the services of agencies or aggregators.
He called traveling by car another family vacation trend.
— Travel agencies are increasingly selling families only accommodation. Because it may not be profitable to buy a large number of tickets," he explained. — It can also be very difficult for families to purchase nearby transportation during the summer season. Especially when it comes to trains. It turns out to be simply unrealistic to buy tickets for everyone in one compartment.
The introduction of discounts on children's air tickets can have a positive impact on the increase in trips around the country, Elena Shelekhova added.
In January of this year, an order from the Ministry of Transport came into force, which obliges carriers to provide a discount on air tickets for children with Russian citizenship aged two to 12 years traveling with an accompanying person. The discount in most airlines for tickets across the country is 50%. In addition, a government decree was signed in March, according to which children from 10 to 18 years old will ride trains inside the country with a 50% discount all year round. Previously, such tariffs were valid from January 1 to May 31 and from September 1 to December 31.
When planning a family travel budget, it is better to pay attention not only to children's discounts, but also to choosing the optimal time for booking, to comprehensive seasonal offers and additional services, the Tutu service added.
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