Rosa Khutor develops communications with foreign tourist markets

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More than 1.5 thousand foreign tourists from over 55 countries visited Rosa Khutor resort in 5 months of 2024.

Rosa Khutor Mountain Resort consistently engages in strategic positioning in friendly tourist markets, developing relationships with partners and increasing its brand awareness.

An important step in this direction was the creation of the Eurasian Mountain Resorts Alliance (EMRA) in June 2023. The organization, which currently unites the mountain resorts "Amirsoy" (Uzbekistan), "Oi-Qaragai" (Kazakhstan), "Rosa Khutor" (Russia), Shahdag (Azerbaijan) and "Shymbulak" (Kazakhstan), is designed to provide a platform for strategic development of tourism in Eurasia, professional communication, and promotion of the best practices and brands of mountain resorts. Among the main goals of the Alliance are the promotion of all–season mountain tourism and the popularization of an active lifestyle, the exchange of necessary information and the best practices, professional development of employees and the development of common approaches to safety standards. In March 2024, the first Festival of Eurasian Mountain Resorts was held at Rosa Khutor, it was attended by not only the members of the Alliance, but also by the delegation of the Myler Mountain Resort (Armenia), as well as the heads of the tourism industry of the Republic of Belarus and the Kyrgyz Republic.

As Sergey Khvorostyanyy, Deputy General Director for International Relations and Tourism of Rosa Khutor notes: "Our initiative to create such a professional community as the Eurasian Alliance of Mountain Resorts is successfully developing. We regularly communicate with colleagues and a specific plan of joint actions and events has already been outlined. It is determined that the II Festival of Eurasian Mountain Resorts will be held in March 2025 at Shahdag Mountain Resort in Azerbaijan. As part of our communication strategy, we are actively promoting the resort in the Eurasian space, participating in significant tourist events in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf countries, and inviting media and influencers from these countries."

Another major event for the resort was the Muslim friendly certification according to the Roskachestvo* system. The four-star hotel Erbelia by Vasta, located at Rosa Khutor, is one of two hotels in Russia that have received such a certificate. "We consider it`s important to participate in strategic development of our industry, fulfilling the President`s task to increase the share of tourism in Russia's GDP to 5% by 2030, and in the threefold growth of exports of tourist services. In this regard, we are certainly interested in guests from the Middle East, Central Asia, and China. This means we have to provide them services that meet their needs, which in general also corresponds to the Russian domestic principles - our country is multi-ethnic and multi-confessional. Due to this fact, we are confident that the Muslim system by Roskachestvo* will continue to develop. We expect that the number of foreign tourists visiting the resort will exceed 5000 people (it is 15% more than in 2023) at the end of this year. I believe that more than half of them will come from Muslim countries" - says Sergey Khvorostyanyy. The system of Muslim Friendly standards implies a set of norms and rules, which should be met by the services of hospitality companies. They do not apply to all rooms, but to specific ones, so the hotel can equally welcome not only Muslims, but also guests of other religions.

According to Sergey Khvorostyanyy Rosa Khutor resort expects about 1.5 thousand Arab tourists for the current summer season within the flight program of Gulf Air from the capital of Bahrain - Manama to Sochi.

"This flight program, which started on June 10, will last until the end of August. But we are working with our partners to create conditions for a year-round flight. Rosa Khutor offers blocks of rooms in the resort hotels for tourists from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as part of their combined tours to Russia. As a rule, guests from Arab countries are extremely impressed by the unique nature of the Western Caucasus, the coolness and majestic beauty of our mountains. This is a completely unique experience for them. In addition, we offer high standards of service. This combination allows us to assume an increase in the tourist flow from the Persian Gulf countries. This is also facilitated by the results of cooperation with tour operators from the UAE, who send tourists on regular flights from Dubai," says the Deputy General Director of Rosa Khutor resort.

* Autonomous non-profit organization "Russian Quality System" - national quality monitoring system