Travel agents told how tourists react to the “currency swing”

After a whole month of relative stability, the dynamics of the ruble exchange rate since the beginning of August began to represent a real “swing”. In the first week of August, the Russian currency strengthened against the American one to 84.95 rubles. After 8 days, the dollar was already 7.5 rubles more expensive – 92.66 rubles. And then he began to lose value no less actively: the exchange rate set by the Bank of Russia on August 15 was 90 rubles, for tomorrow – 88.80 rubles.

We asked the participants of the tg chat for tourism professionals “Roof of the B2B Travel House”: “What do your tourists do in the conditions of a “currency swing” – are they in a hurry to make an additional payment for partially paid tours or, conversely, are they holding back in anticipation of a more profitable course?” Judging by the answers, the clients of travel companies do not have a single “tactic”. “Who knows how: when there was a sharp weakening of the ruble, some customers urgently paid extra on requests, others did not,” “Those who did not have time to deposit money before the dollar rose in price, hold back additional payments. Many tourists booking tours for the autumn school holidays hope for the strengthening of the Russian currency in September,” travel agents write. 

Shared information with the portal TourDom.ru and in the group of companies “Fly.“: “On the first day of the sharp jump in the exchange rate, agents tried to close all unpaid bookings so as not to fall on the exchange rate difference. The next day, everyone was already keeping their finger on the pulse: tour operators, travel agents, and tourists – they tried to pay for everything that was booked at the new rate immediately, since there was no understanding what would happen in the next day,” said Lyubov Voronina, head of international projects.

Aleksan Mkrtchyan, founder of the Pink Elephant travel agency network, draws attention to perhaps the most painful problem associated with rate hikes: any sharp currency fluctuations lead to a deterioration in the dynamics of bookings of tours abroad. When the ruble strengthens, tourists take their time shopping, waiting for an even more favorable value of the dollar and the euro. If our currency weakens, they also take a break: they consider simpler hotels or other tourist destinations, consider options for reducing the duration of rest in order to meet the originally planned amount of spending.

Perhaps the main conclusion is that for the outbound tourism market, it is not so much a “strong” ruble that is important, as a stable ruble – without sharp and unpredictable exchange rate fluctuations. 

Recall that since June 13, the Central Bank has been setting the exchange rates of the US dollar and the euro according to new rules. There are no trades in these currencies on the Moscow Stock Exchange, data for calculations are taken from over-the-counter platforms and from bank reports.

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