Russian Travel Digest

22 March 2019 - Thomas Cook Group announces that it has agreed to enter into a joint venture agreement with Ionic Invest, to buy the tour operator of Biblio Globus, one of the largest tour operators in Russia. The joint venture, in which Thomas Cook intends to assume a 30% minority stake, will give Thomas Cook a leading position in a growing market, help to further diversify the Group's customer base, and enable it to secure additional flight capacity to support the future growth in its existing Russian business...

Among Russian tourist Myanmar is less popular country in Southeast Asia. However, Myanmar (several years ago known as Burma) is successfully increasing tourism popularity, although not so fast as, for example, neighboring Vietnam,   According to the official tourism statistics of Myanmar, in 2016 this country hosted 5,487 Russian tourists, which is 0.43% of the total tourist flow. This, however, is more than the number of Austrians (4,857) or New Zealanders (5,026), who arrived in Myanmar that year...

Laos is a singular country of the Indochinese Peninsula, which has no coastline, so beach lovers have nothing to do here. Those, who are interested in untouched nature and treasures of ancient cultures, go to Laos. There are many beautiful Buddhist temples and palaces in Laos. Thus, the city of Luang Prabang with its royal palace and the Wat Phou Buddhist temple near the city of Champasak are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The cave city, which is located in the north of the country on the Mekong River, also is very popular among tourists...

Thailand is in the TOP 10 foreign countries visited by Russian tourists. According to the annually published data of Rosstat, Rosturism and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Thailand, the country was visited by: 2015 year - 675,089 Russian tourists 2016 year - 866,597 Russian tourists  2017 year - 1,094,000 Russian tourists  2018 year - 1,700,000 Russian tourists  At the media briefing held during ASEAN Tourism Forum 2019 in Vietnam it was announced by the representative of the Ministry of Tourism...

Singapore Airlines was named the "Best Asian Airline" in Russia and the CIS countries by the Business Traveller for the third year in a row. Singapore Airlines already received this Award in 2016 and 2017. The ceremony took place in Moscow on November, 15, 2018.   Business Traveller Awards are given annually for outstanding achievements and innovations in the field of business tourism. In 2018,  37 nominations were presented in 5 categories: "Airlines", "Airports", "Destinations - Business Traveler's Choice", "Hotels", "Arsenal"...