The popularity of Belarusian sanatoriums this year is greater than in the previous year

The majority of foreigners prefer to spend their holidays in sanatoriums: “Radon”, “Energetik” (Grodno Oblast), “Bug” (Brest Oblast) and “Pridneprovsky” (Gomel Oblast). Sanatoriums “Sosny” and “Priozerny”, as well as “Yunost”, near Minsk are also extremely popular. The majority of visitors are Russians however Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Poles and Israelis also spend their holidays and come for treatment to Belarusian recuperation centres.

“Unfortunately, our sanatoriums are fully booked for the summer period”, has for quite a while been displayed on the website www.belsanatorii.ru . “We realized that people coming from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Smolensk really enjoy the opportunity to book a package holiday in our sanatoriums… We have clients from the Caucuses, the Volga Region and even from Kamchatka…” Those who are late for this season may only hope for so-called ‘hot tours’, in case someone cancels a booking. 

What attracts foreigners in Belarus? First of all, low cost…

In Russia, as well as abroad the cost of a package recuperation holiday is a lot higher. Perhaps, their service is better and the opportunities are wider, however the quality to price ratio in Belarusian sanatoriums is rather reasonable in general. For instance, a single luxury room with four meals a day and spa facilities in the rather prestigious recuperation centre “Sosny” at lake Naroch would cost around 40 US dollars per day and in the recuperation centre “Priozerny” – around 30 US dollars per day. Moreover, the cost for Belarusian citizens and for the foreigners is the same. A day in a sanatorium in the same class near Moscow would cost 1.5 – 2 times more. In Lithuanian Druskeninkai it would cost twice as much. That is probably the reason why Lithuanians are second only to Russians in spending their holidays in Belarusian recuperation centres this year. There are quite a few old-age foreigners coming to Belarus for health treatment. There are also ‘special’ holidaymakers that move from one sanatorium to another all summer. For example there is an old lady from St. Petersburg, who has two apartments there, she rents out the one in the centre for good money and spends half a year in recuperation centres at lake Naroch. She is extremely happy with this arrangement: she gets meals 4 times a day, enjoys the spa facilities and has her room cleaned for her…

Another favourable factor is the visa policy of neighbouring countries: Schengen visas were introduced for Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Czech Republic. It is complicated and costly for the CIS citizens to receive a Schengen visa therefore they choose to go on holidays and for health treatment to a place requiring less effort.

From SPA procedures to ostrich farms

The third reason for such popularity is the improvement of services in sanatoriums and inclusion of very popular spa procedures. Just recently a luxury spa-centre opened in sanatorium “Yunost” at the Minsk sea. Some clients are attracted to that place due to ‘psychological’ factors: they are not regarded as ‘ill’ rather as ‘relaxing’. Moreover, sanatoriums included tourist services, such as excursions to Minsk, Mir Castle, Belavezhskaya and Nalibotskaya Pushcha. Sanatoriums around lake Naroch take their guests on tours around the area and show them the beauties of local nature, lake Beloye and organize excursions to local castles. They also develop new tourist routes, for example to an ostrich farm in Luchai, where one can try the low-calorie meat of this exotic bird and ride a horse or a pony.

Foreigners learned how to plan their holidays, Belarusians, not yet

Another factor is that Russians have already learned to plan their vacations in advance, while Belarusians have not as yet, thinks Director of the Belarusian tourist portal www.holiday.by Andrey Barashko. Thus plane tickets are being booked four months in advance and holidays are being planned around half a year in advance. Belarusians usually plan only their holidays abroad in advance and if something goes wrong they tend to think that they will always be able to find something within the country. However recently they faced the reality of ‘no rooms available’ – all tours were bought out or booked by Russians.

Quite a few Russian companies buy out tours via so-called ‘hard block’, i.e. making a pre-payment. For example, 70 % of places in prestigious Belarusian recuperation centres and sanatoriums were bought out by the Russian tourist companies around The New Year period.

Tourists are like a tide: ebb and flow

The tourism industry has a global, international character and the tendencies of exit and entry tourism are identical. Holiday resort facilities do not mind the nationality of their guests, whether they are Belarusians, Lithuanians or Russians. Classical and typical marketing policy is being implemented by the sanatoriums, more often they act as tour operators and service providers. That is why everything is developing in a conventional market driven way, thinks Andrey Barashko, Director of the Tourist Portal www.holiday.by.

The main thing for sanatoriums to realize is that this demand of foreigners for Belarusian recuperation centres would not last forever. Tourists and holidaymakers are like a tide: ebb and flow. Everyone goes there where something better is being offered at a lower cost. That is why Belarusian holiday resort centres need to analyze the situation and reasons behind such an influx of foreign tourists recently, then clearly identify competitive benefits and develop in that direction. Thus, agro-farms, and so-called ‘green’ tourism in Belarus already started losing clients: they have not managed to provide adequate service at a competitive cost.

By Ludmila Korsak