OREANDA-NEWS Sales of tours to the Chinese resort island of Hainan began to grow actively after the launch of Aeroflot's direct flight from Moscow to Sanya at the end of December, although so far the share of this destination in the total volume of foreign tours is small, the Russian Union of Travel Industry (PCT) reports, citing data from aggregators and tour operators.

"The flight program to Hainan opened on December 27. The very next day, a surge in the volume of orders in the direction became noticeable. However, so far Russian tourists buy only a few dozen tours a week," said the marketing director of the online store Travelata.ru Oleg Kozyrev.

Nevertheless, the expert believes that the Chinese island will gain popularity and compete with the usual Asian destinations, since Russians like to spend winter holidays on the beaches, and Hainan just provides such an opportunity.

As explained in the company "Fly.<url>", while China is not in the top 10 in-demand destinations, being located only on the 13th line with a share of 0.35% of the total volume of applications. However, according to Elizaveta Tymoshenko, director of promotion of the package tour aggregator, demand is growing rapidly after the advent of direct flights.

"Trips are usually booked a month before departure, and the maximum depth of sales reaches August. The average duration of travel is 11-12 nights. Tourists prefer 5* hotels, they account for 67.5% of sales, and the most common type of food is breakfast, the share of such accommodation is 79%," the expert said.

Due to the demand for Hainan, sales of tours to China as a whole are growing. So, a month ago, the country was not even in the top ten of the agency network "Shop of burning Vouchers" (IHP), and now it is in eighth place among the most popular destinations.

"Demand for Hainan has been actively growing since December 20th, having increased almost 10 times by now. It is clear that the base was initially low and sales volumes were several times lower than in 2019. In total sales to China in our network, as well as aggregators, there is still less than a percent, but progress is evident," said Sergey Agafonov, CEO of the network and head of the committee of the Russian Union of Travel Industry for agency activities.

According to IHL, the average cost of a tour to Hainan is comparable to the average check at resorts in Thailand, the UAE and Sri Lanka.

In the pre-pandemic 2019, about 300 thousand Russian tourists rested on Hainan.