Russians love to travel. In many tourist centers of the world, Russian speech prevails over the languages of other nations. Due to the high activity of Russian citizens regarding travel abroad, various online services related to the provision of travel services are gaining momentum. One of the most famous companies working in this direction is the Turskidki Tochka Ru company (its official website is not at all difficult to find). Tourists are offered travel arrangements at a significant discount.
Company Brief
The company "Turskidki Tochka Ru", reviews of which can often be found on thematic forums and portals for travelers, has been operating since the beginning of the 2000s. On the website of this company or in the office (the company has representative offices in the largest Russian cities), you can book tours to various countries of the world from a wide range of operators with a significant discount.
Among the largest regional markets for the presence of Turskidki.ru is Moscow (reviews from residents of the capital about the experience of using the company's services are regularly found on the network).
Business model
The Turskidki.ru system is designed for travelers who are active Internet users. They are used to booking tours online using any available device - smartphone, tablet, PC. In the Russian online booking market, three main models of interaction between travel service providers and customer travelers have formed. Firstly, you can go to the operator’s website - a direct service provider. Secondly, there is the option of purchasing a tour from an intermediary (agency). Thirdly, you can independently combine the tour by booking yourself a place in the hotel, buying a ticket and applying for a visa.
The company "Turskidki.ru" operates in the second segment - it is an intermediary between many operators and the client. In accordance with agency agreements, this company receives a percentage of the sales of the tour, even taking into account the discount from the operator. Significant revenue also comes from the sale of branded discount cards.
Discount specifics
The company "Turskidki.ru" (reviews of many travelers confirm this) can offer discounts, which, according to various sources, amount to 50% of the initial cost of the tour.
The standard option is when a traveler buys a card, using which he can receive discounts on travel to certain countries from specific operators. The discount in the Turskidki.ru system (reviews of many customers often relate to this aspect) can be offered not only for travel, but also for flights.
Discount cards
From time to time, Turskidki.ru, apart from the standard discounts for travel bookings, also offers its own discount model based on the sale of cards. For example, such as Classic (implying a discount of 5%), Gold (discount of 7%), as well as Business (discount of 10%). Classic cards are the cheapest, respectively, Business cards are the most expensive. It is possible to hold promotions in which the traveler can receive some of the types of cards for free (but subject to a number of conditions, for example, if he joins a group on the social network administered by Turskidki.ru).
How to choose a tour operator with discounts?
The main thing that the site "Turskidki.ru" offers is a tour search among many offers from operators. Tourism market experts believe that the key criterion for choosing a particular offer should not be the price, but other conditions offered by the operator. Market experts advise you to pay attention to a number of factors that determine the reliability of a particular provider of travel services.
Firstly, this is the duration of the company’s work in the market. Companies that have extensive business experience tend to have an affiliate network, and therefore the likelihood of solving potential problems is higher than for young organizations. In addition, analysts believe that the fact that the company experienced a difficult crisis of 2008-2009 , when the tourism market fell sharply, may indicate its relative stability.
Secondly, experts advise caution about too cheap (as well as too expensive) proposals. For some reason, most likely objective and substantial, people don’t want to go to a specific city or hotel in a certain direction, which is why the price of the tour from the operator falls (or the discount from the travel agency increases).
Thirdly, before choosing an offer on portals such as "Turskidki.ru", it is advisable to go to the operators' websites and find out the conditions for the provision of services, compare them. It may well turn out that with an equal cost of the tour to the same place, different operators may offer a different set of services (for example, one company includes a transfer from the airport to the price of the tour, while the other does not). Of course, it is useful to read, considering the offers from Turskidki.ru, the reviews of travelers regarding the experience of acquiring trips.
Directions
The highest probability is to find a discount tour to countries such as Greece, Egypt, Thailand, the UAE, but discounts to China, Israel, the Netherlands, and the Dominican Republic are also frequent.
There are also discount offers on popular ski resorts in France, Switzerland, sightseeing tours to Scandinavia. In most cases, the minimum travel discount is 10%.
How promising is such a business model?
According to analysts, online booking of tours in Russia every year is becoming an increasingly popular tool for travelers. The growth of this market, experts believe, is due to the fact that Internet penetration (both wired and mobile) has increased, online trading has actively developed, which has developed the habit of many Russians to buy in online stores.
In foreign countries, the share of online booking in the tourism market has reached impressive values: in the United States it is about 60%, in Europe - 30-50%. This segment is very popular in India - there the share of online booking is about 30%. Analysts believe that there is every reason to expect that the Russian market will grow to similar indicators. Statistics give reason to talk about this quite confidently: according to some researchers, in 2009-2012 this segment grew 4.6 times in Russia.
If we take only the segment of online hotel booking, then its volume in 2013, as calculated by RBC, amounted to 36.2 billion rubles. (This is about 34.8% of the market for online transactions related to travel registration). Actually, as such tours ("package") took 30.5% with an indicator of 31.7 billion rubles. Analysts also noted that about 80-90% of travel services selected via the Internet, the Russians preferred to pay in the offices of operators and travel agents. Perhaps that is why an active presence in offline by opening a representative office in many cities is provided by Turskidki.ru. Customer reviews of companies available on the Internet often include comments regarding the level of service at a particular office.
Features of the Russian market for online booking of travel services
According to experts, a lot of Russian tour operators do not have a sufficiently developed Internet infrastructure that makes it convenient to book trips. The Russians themselves, analysts say, are not very inclined to trust online payments yet, and therefore they go to the offices of operators and agencies. At the same time, as many clients of Turskidki.ru note in their online reviews, the official website of the company is quite convenient to use.
The leading segment in online booking of travel services is the sale of airline tickets (in 2013, the Russians spent $ 4.7 billion on their online purchase). The second largest segment is hotel reservations ( $ 2.4 billion). As such, tours - 0.3 billion, and this is even less than the turnover of the segment associated with the sale of railway tickets (0.9 billion). The total volume of the online tourism services market, as calculated by RBC, amounted to 8.3 billion dollars in 2013 (while the tourism market as a whole - 45 billion).
Market outlook
According to some experts, Russian travelers are very sensitive to news from the tourism business. Bankruptcy of the largest operators affects the level of confidence of Russians in the purchase of tours, especially online. However, there is an opposite point of view.
Its supporters believe that the cheapness of online tours (as well as a significantly higher benefit in contacting tour operators, when compared with independent travel planning) still retains the role of a significant factor for Russian travelers. Many reviews about Turskidki.ru indirectly confirm this - people are interested in the opportunity to travel abroad cheaper.