In the period of matchmaking of world football Championship the region borders were crossed in total by nearly 300 thousand people in both sides, 25 thousand of them are foreign fans with the FAN ID card. Such data was disclosed on the eve in the Kaliningrad regional customs. On Tuesday, July 3, the information about the number of requests from foreign fans and guests from other regions of the country in the regional tourist information center also appeared in media. For two weeks it was visited by more than 3,300 foreign guests and 12 thousand Russian tourists.
In General, according to the government, in 14 days, more than 100 thousand Russian and foreign tourists visited the region. More precise information about hotel occupancy rates, revenue of catering facilities, souvenir shops, tour Desk will be known in the third quarter of this year. Autumn will show the results of the tourist season, the part of which became the influx of visitors caused by the games of the world Cup. Bad weather, changes in the economic situation, failures in the “Khrabrovo” airport operation altogether will be able to adjust the positive trend and the indicators of tourist flow to the region will remain at last year's level.
However, even now hoteliers, restaurateurs, representatives of the tourism industry sum up the preliminary results, stating that the Championship “did not meet their expectations.”
The head of a trading network "Spar" in Kaliningrad Oleg Ponomarev called the increase of the Kaliningrad retail proceeds on the day of the match between Croatia and Nigeria a pleasant thing. "We estimate the proceeds growth in stores on the day of the match within 5%. For us it is quite a bit", —Ponomarev said, taking into account that autumn will be rough for Kaliningrad retail in connection with the completion of several infrastructure projects and stagnation of regular demand.
The main beneficiaries of the event on a match day became the cafes and restaurants around the Victory square. Restaurateur Maxim Tkachev, whose three restaurants are located on Victory square, said that on the day of the match and the day before it, the revenue compared to the usual day off turned out to be twice as large.
However, institutions not in the center of the city, on the contrary, faced a 10% drop in revenue, Tkachev said.
"Let's face it: we've been waiting for a lot more tourists since the beginning of June. But we did not see so many tourists. Now it is almost the usual summer with the usual number of tourists", restaurateur Maxim Tkachev says.
According to him, for the Kaliningrad public catering in general, the World Cup is still rather a pleasant bonus and an opportunity to advertise Kaliningrad with its low prices. According to the owner of the "Tabasco" network, he and his colleagues in the public catering kept the prices at the standard level, without using the successful market conditions to raise them.
Marina Drutman from the travel company "Baltma Tours" confirms that the expectations from the championship are somewhat divorced from reality. The company failed to sell all the "committments" (when the travel agency pre-purchases the hotel reservation and sells it as part of an integrated tourist service). "We can not say that there was a wild excitement", Marina Drutman says. The desire of Kaliningraders and individual hotels to earn a lot in a few days of the championship in the lease of their space generated a response among the fans. Some of them decided not to stay in the city at night and ordered charter flights without spending the night. Baltma Tours organized such charters for 100 Nigerians from Moscow and 500 Croats from Zagreb.
On average, the Kaliningrad tourist industry will benefit after the championship, but now we can speak about the negative impact of the event on the revenue of hotels on the coast. "We have never had such a good June for booking. This year we have wonderful weather, but tourists just do not come, because they are afraid of prices. It's a pity, but the hotels on the coast have lost", Marina Drutman says.
Hotels in the city, limited by the authorities in the free formation of accommodation prices during the World Cup, were protected from falling incomes by refusing to sell rooms for one night. Many hotels sold accommodation from three nights: fans bought such accommodation, but still stayed only for one day.
Sellers of souvenirs are also cautious in their assessments of the economic effect of the championship. The owner of the company Pictorica Maxim Popov, specializing in the production of souvenirs and gift books, said that sales of the "souvenir" have grown significantly only on the day of the match in the shopping center "Europe", almost twice.
This is how the representatives of the hospitality industry and related industries assess the preliminary results of work during the World Cup matches. The real impact of the world football holiday, preparation for it, the region will feel on its economic and tourist potential for more than one year. New hotels, road interchanges and highways, a completely renovated international airport, renovated hospitals, modernized energy infrastructure, the stadium for games, and the tidied up area surrounding it all will become points of growth for the economy of the amber region, creating conditions for the emergence of large investment projects.
In preparing the publication, the materials of the Internet publication "New Kaliningrad" were used.