The profit of the cruise subsidiary of Russian Railways increased by 460% over the year

The revenue of Russian Railways Tour, the cruise subsidiary of the Russian Railways holding , increased by 50.5% at the end of last year, to 1.4 billion rubles, net profit - by 463.9%, to 269.5 million rubles. These are the company's best results over the past five years.

The Russian Railways Tour company was founded in 2005 and until 2011 was mainly involved in organizing charter transportation and exclusive events on trains - conferences, business meetings, team building events. Then she reoriented herself to the tourist direction and organized locomotive tours in Moscow and St. Petersburg , along the Circum-Baikal Railway, cruises along the Trans-Siberian Railway and the northern part of the country on the Imperial RUSSIA train. First of all, these proposals were aimed at foreigners. In 2020, against the backdrop of the covid-19 pandemic , which imposed restrictions on air travel abroad, Russian Railways Tour began to develop a direction in the field of domestic tourism. The first cruise railway route appeared - “Greatness of the North” ( Moscow  - Ruskeala mountain park in Karelia - Arkhangelsk - Veliky Ustyug - Moscow).

Now the company is both a tour operator and a carrier (rents trains with a locomotive crew), offering clients various cruises, sightseeing and one-day tours. Among the new destinations are “Pearl of the Caucasus” (Moscow - Maykop - Vladikavkaz - Grozny - Derbent - Nalchik - Moscow), "Belarusian Voyage" (Moscow - Brest - MINSK  - Moscow), several tours to Karelia.

There are no other companies in Russia that organize rail cruises on an ongoing basis.

As the company itself explained, the growth in financial results is primarily due to high demand for tourist, corporate and individual trips and the redistribution of passenger traffic in domestic traffic. In total, in 2023, more than 168 thousand people used the services of Russian Railways Tour, which is 1.5 times more than a year earlier.

According to Ilya Zotov, chairman of the All-Russian Association of Passengers, net profit at the end of 2023 may be a reflection of the absence of serious costs for the formation of a tourism product. “In essence, the company bears the key costs for the rolling stock and payment for the services of local agents; the rest is “intellectual labor”, which is little considered in these matters,” the expert adds.

According to the forecast data of Russian Railways Tour, financial indicators will remain at a level not lower than 2023. In the coming years, the demand for railway tourism will only increase, and the work of Russian Railways Tour in terms of creating new routes and destinations “will not go anywhere,” Zotov believes. The company's offerings are in greatest demand in the centers where passenger traffic originates - Moscow, St. Petersburg, cities with a population of over a million, adds Kirill Yankov, Chairman of the Passengers Union.

According to Russian Railways Tour, the greatest demand in 2023 was for tours to Karelia - the cruise “To Karelia”, the weekend tour “Karelian Saga”, the multimodal one-day tour “To Ruskeala on a retro train in 1 day from St. Petersburg”, “In Karelia on the Santa Claus train." These routes include a visit to the Ruskeala mountain park, a trip on the Ruskeala Express retro train (a ticket for it is included in the price of the tour package). In winter, the tourist train “To Karelia” stops at Chalna to visit the Karelian Father Frost - Talviukko.

The so-called fairy-tale destinations remained constantly in demand - tourist trains to the homeland of Father Frost, Veliky Ustyug, cruises "Greatness of the North", "Winter Tale" from Moscow and St. Petersburg, "Frost Express" and the summer "Russian North".

Demand for southern multi-day trips also remained high, for example, for the Pearl of the Caucasus cruise. This year, the Federal Passenger Company (FPK, a subsidiary of Russian Railways) presented an updated train composition for this cruise - for the first time, a spa car appeared on it.

Other offers of Russian Railways Tour include the Blooming Steppe cruises with a visit to Elista and Taste of the Epoch, the Victory Day train to Volgograd, the joint project of Russian Railways and the government of the Tyumen region “To Siberia”, “Bright Weekend in the Volga Region” in Yoshkar-Olu and Kazan, “Tales of the Volga Region” and gastronomic tours “We eat deliciously - BIK TEMLE!” and “We're eating delicious food. Delicious Yoshka!”, “Baikal Tale” to the port of Baikal with a trip along the Circum-Baikal Railway.

In total, Russian Railways Tour offers clients 49 tours, including railway travel; prices for them, depending on the duration of the trip, start from 1.4 thousand rubles. and ends at 134.8 thousand rubles. The company has a total of 120 programs, including day-long walking tours.

According to Zotov, in a number of areas the price for the company’s services is overpriced, as reported by consumers themselves. “At such a high demand, it is not justified for the carrier to reduce the cost. However, in the long term, when expanding the number of routes, tariffs can be revised and several categories can be defined, for example, “Children”, “Organized groups” and so on, and also offer your own product for a separate audience,” he believes.