As the head of Rostourism Zarina Doguzova told reporters, in the face of the closure of popular foreign destinations for beach recreation, the entire Black Sea coast of Russia turned out to be maximally loaded, and in some places overloaded.
“The problem is that today in the entire South there is a shortage of high-quality, modern hotels, therefore, in the context of limited international air traffic, demand has multiplied the supply. And this, as expected, leads to overheating of the market and a dynamic rise in prices", - Izvestia quoted Doguzova as saying.
According to the official, in the near future the Russian hospitality industry faces the task of "multiplying the number of high-quality, modern year-round hotels on our warm sea".
In the next three years, Rosturizm hopes to expand the construction of hotels in resort and recreational areas, supporting the creation of at least 20 thousand new modern rooms.
“Today, for comparison, the whole country has about 60 thousand numbers under federal and international brands, and they are located mainly in large cities. Of course, we are also working on diversifying domestic destinations and leisure formats”, - Kommersant quotes Doguzova's words.
Against the background of the partial lifting of coronavirus restrictions, the flow of tourists to the South of Russia resumed. In conditions when most foreign resorts remain closed to Russians, a record number of tourists went to the domestic Black Sea coast in the summer of 2021, which exceeds the average by several million people. This provoked a shortage of accommodations, as a result of which the vacationers were "even leased out sheds". In a situation of "frantic demand" and lack of supply, prices for vacations have skyrocketed: in some places "sheds" are rented out at almost the price of "palaces".
To provide transport for the incredible number of tourists who flew to the south, airlines doubled the number of flights to the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory and Crimea compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019. However, even in such a situation, industry experts have concerns that the Russian south, overloaded with tourists, may simply not be able to cope with such an influx of tourists. In order to prevent a collapse, representatives of the tourism industry asked the authorities to speed up the decision to open popular foreign destinations for Russians. Experts hope that this will help to somewhat reduce the "overheated" price status of Russian resorts.