What will a grounded Russian market mean for travel this summer?

Thomas Cook, now re-established as an OTA, believes the knock-on effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will be felt later in the summer in the UK market: “Turkey is particularly affected, but often the hotels popular with our clients are not popular with Russians,” said a Cook spokesperson. “I think in the next few weeks we’ll see hoteliers wanting to offer other properties, particularly in Turkey and Egypt.”

The shape of the UK market would exacerbate the situation, they said. “What we are seeing is a disrupted traditional buying period. It feels like lates will be the peak. I think there will be some enticing summer deals for Turkey and Egypt, particularly towards the end of the summer. You might see something similar in the higher end resorts – Ibiza and Mykonos, for example.”

Tourist boards are anxiously considering steps to offset the anticipated shortfall. In 2019, just over 1.3 million Russians visited Spain, a relatively small figure compared with the more than 17 million Britons, but Russia’s absence means Spanish tourist board Turespana must make up the shortfall.

Spain cancelled its stand at Moscow’s MITT tourism show in March, plus all promotional activity, citing solidarity with Ukraine. It said it was “working on finding alternatives to a possible absence of Russian tourists this high season in our destinations most exposed to this market”.

A country that will take a bigger hit proportionately is Cyprus. In 2019, Cyprus had 1.33 million UK tourist arrivals and 781,856 from Russia. About another 200,000 were expected from Ukraine.

Pantelis Ioannides, Cyprus’s deputy Ministry of Tourism spokesperson, said: “We plan to fill the gap from markets like the UK, Germany, Sweden, Israel, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Poland and Hungary, from which we will have 20-40 flights per week.”

Greece and Cyprus specialist Sunvil is watching the situation closely. Rachel Jelley, sales and marketing manager, predicted more of an impact on the latter. “For Cyprus, there are much closer ties with, and reliance on, the Russian outbound tourism industry – mainly all-inclusive hotels. We may see offers and reduced rates here, but demand for travel from other source markets is likely to fill any available beds."

Greece will see little impact, she predicted. “The Russian share of the Greek tourism market was 8% of the total arrivals from the UK and Greece in 2019. It is not a market reliant on Russia, and even less so after a strong season in 2021, both from domestic travellers and those from other European destinations.”

She forecast: “Cancellations from Russian and Ukrainian travellers will be easily resold due to current high levels of demand from other source markets.”

Advantage leisure director Kelly Cookes said there was no significant evidence yet of hoteliers keen to offload rooms but added there was “definitely” a change in UK demand for certain destinations due to the conflict. “Turkey has decreased, while Spain has gone up, so if this trend continues, there may be destinations that were more reliant on the Russian market that look to reduce prices to entice UK customers,” she predicted.

The horrors in Ukraine, and the international condemnation of Russia, mean that even if the conflict ends before summer, the effect on destinations reliant on both country’s tourists will be felt far longer. It would be an unwise hotelier who did not start to think about new sources of visitors for the next few years.