Rather costly vacations

The average spending of families with children on summer holidays is 282 thousand rubles. Such data is provided by the analytical service of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR). According to experts, tourists with children form the highest average tour check among all categories of tourists.

Analysts' data indicate that the average cost of an application for such tourists is 30% higher than for others in all segments. So, in the summer season of 2024, the average spending of family tourists amounted to the equivalent of $ 3.1 thousand per application, which is almost 264 thousand rubles.

At the same time, about 74-75% of all family applications for tours come from families with one child, and 24-25% from families with 2 children. A larger number of children are always rare single applications, only 1% of families go on vacation with three children, experts say.

The question arises as to what the average large family can afford in terms of recreation. How a person can spend a vacation is a very important factor, including when planning a family.

For those with many children, unless they are low-income, recreation benefits are not available. It is almost impossible to catch discounted tickets on airline websites, and according to the sales rules, they cannot be bought at discounts for all family members and not in both directions. After all, even taking into account only 3 children and mom and dad, that is, two adults, there are 5 family members in total. And, for example, on the Aeroflot website it is indicated that during a calendar year, at a special rate, you can buy up to 4 tickets in one direction or 2 tickets in the direction of there and back, or 2 tickets in one direction and one ticket in the direction of there and back.

What's left? Or not to fly on vacation with the whole family, which, frankly speaking, does not contribute to strengthening family values, or to get in a car, if of course there is one, and go on a trip by car. No, of course there is another way. These are trains and commuter trains. It is possible on the crossbar… Apparently, this is also why Russia is leading, according to analysts, among the places that Russians with three children choose for their summer holidays.

Two years ago, two out of three Russians believe that they need less money for their vacations in Russia than at foreign resorts. Vacations, especially those associated with travel, increasingly fell into the category of unnecessary expenses. Well, or the Russians assumed very small costs for it. So, in 2023,

20 percent of tourists expect that summer vacations can cost from 50,000 to 80,000 roubles. Of course, there are those who are ready to spend more, for example, 12.5 percent are ready to spend from 150,000 to 300,000 roubles on a tour, and another 4 percent can spend over 300,000 roubles on their vacations.

According to analysts, this year millions of tourists will not even be able to afford to travel outside their region. In the summer of 2025, a vacation in Russia will cost an average of 75 thousand rubles per person.

However, according to experts, about half of the rooms in popular domestic destinations have already been booked. Kuban remains one of the main destinations for domestic tourism.

Among foreign countries, Turkey remains the most family-friendly summer destination for Russians. Egypt is in second place in the summer, where people travel with 1 child much more often. The UAE is more often chosen by families with two children in the summer. And Thailand turned out to be the most "childish" summer destination. Domestic holidays in Russia and these countries account for more than 94% of applications from family tourists with children.

According to analysts, the total share of applications from families with children reaches almost 40% of all sales of tours in the summer season, taking the first place in terms of the share in the total number of applications. This is the trend of the last two years. According to tour operators, families with children have the longest average vacation time (8.4 nights) during the summer season. Although, compared to 2023, in 2024, all groups of tourists, including families, have started and continue to trend towards reducing the number of travel days. Fewer nights is considered as a way to save money against the background of increased prices.

“Many of those who used to go on vacation abroad do not have such an opportunity now due to very complicated logistics and the price increase. And they are ready to spend this money in Russia”, - says Sergey Pozdnyakov, an expert in tourism.

“The main thing is to have some nice places to go to, unfortunately, many tourism destinations even advertised extensively do not meet many requirements, especially those of the discerning tourists,” he sums up.