Besides Montenegro, the leaders in demand for tours are the traditional high-season destinations: Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Italy, Thailand, and Bulgaria.Demand grew thanks to an extremely flexible pricing policy pursued both by accommodation providers abroad and by tour operators. Nevertheless, in terms of profitability, the season turned out to be less profitable than last year, reportsATOR.
“Profitability has not increased. The demand environment in the outbound tourism segment continues to follow a trend of saving. Tourists are shortening the length of their vacations, taking the minimum of additional services on site, and trying to save on accommodation, but without dropping down to 2-3* properties. They are also trying to save on excursions,” said Maya Lomidze.
“Tourists have not started spending more. They spend the bare minimum needed for a more or less comfortable holiday. And this overall picture was present in almost all summer outbound destinations in the tour operator segment. The 10-15% growth we are talking about was driven by the budget and lower end of the mid-range product segment. There is enviable stability in the luxury tourism segment. Overall growth could have been even higher if the middle class had not moved entirely into the budget segment, and if budget tourists could afford to travel,” noted the executive director of ATOR.