Saturday, November 08, 2008

22,000 more Russian tourists next year

The Tourism Council has initiated negotiations with several Russian airline companies to try and establish direct flights between el Altet and Saint Petersburg.

Russian tourism is at the moment one of the alternatives that is being explored to try and mitigate the effects of the economic crisis. The plan is to tap into the flow of high spending visitors from Moscow and Saint Petersburg who like to take an 11 days beach holiday each year. At the moment they are choosing Turkey and Egypt as their destinations. Those that come to Spain are visiting Catalonia, Madrid and Andalucia.

Russians wanting to visit he Costa Blanca previously have faced problems with tour companies coming and going and the lack of regular flights to Alicante. The 22 companies that participated in a recent tourism trade fair in Moscow have now secured deals with 100 Russian travel agencies to resolve those issues.

Out of the 46.9 million tourists that visited the Costa Blanca last year, 479,538 were Russian (19% more than in 2007).The Servigroup , Mágic group and the hotel Sidi San Juan have all successfully negotiated to increase that number in 2009.

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