Russians have become interested in traveling to the Summer Olympics in Paris

Russian fans have begun to become interested in tickets to the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The bulk of the tickets have already been sold, but travel agencies and intermediaries promise to provide them. Read about how the trips are organized in the RBC article.

Russian fans began to look for an opportunity to go to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Requests for tickets and travel arrangements in January are already being recorded by tour operators, ticketing and concierge services surveyed by RBC.

There are less than 200 days until the start of the XXXIII Summer Olympic Games in Paris - the official opening of the games is scheduled for July 26, 2024. The organizing committee of the Olympics began selling tickets for the competition in February 2023. Most of the tickets were sold out by May 2023, but additional tickets are going on sale.

Athletes from RUSSIA will be present at the 2024 Olympics, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has allowed them only as individual athletes in neutral status. In December 2023, eight Russian athletes received the right to compete at the Olympic Games in Paris in a neutral status, the IOC reported. Official symbols of Russia, such as the flag, anthem and coat of arms, will be prohibited at the Olympic Games.

Previous Olympic Games abroad aroused interest among Russian fans: for example, at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, the Russians bought 75% of the tickets available under the quota a week before the start of the Games. Then about 40 thousand tickets were allocated for Russian fans. Russians bought 10–12 thousand tickets for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The last Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 took place without foreign fans due to the covid-19 pandemic .

Are there many requests from Russians for the 2024 Olympics?

There has not yet been a high demand for trips to the Olympic Games in Paris, says Maya Lomidze, executive DIRECTOR of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR). But some Russian tour operators are ready to organize travel for clients, although “without guarantees of a ticket to the competition,” Lomidze adds.

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In the case of trips to the Olympics, most tour operators work according to the individual requests of tourists, notes BSI Group CEO Vadim Ostrovsky. BSI Group itself already has requests, but they are still isolated. Clients are mainly interested in tickets to competitions with hotel accommodation, although hotel prices in France have increased significantly during the Olympics, says Ostrovsky. Tickets for the competition are also quite expensive, so very few of our fans will go to France, he suggested.

Russian Express has currently received about ten requests for a trip to the games in Paris, a representative of the tour operator, Anna Filatovskaya, told RBC. “This is a very individual and expensive product,” says Filatovskaya. She does not specify the cost - “there are no calculated packages yet, everything is on request.” But in the package, the tour operator offers tickets to sporting events, hotel accommodation, medical insurance and transfer to the airport, and also helps with visa processing. Many hotels confirm accommodation for a minimum of 14 nights during the Olympics, says Filatovskaya. “Closer to the summer, places may run out, so if you want to get to the Olympic Games, you need to make a decision now,” she added.

How hotels make money from fans

Hotel prices in Paris during the Olympics increased by an average of 314%, ATOR noted. For example, the average price per night in a hotel near the site of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games from July 26 to 27 costs €1,033 (105 thousand rubles), which is 3.2 times more expensive compared to the same period last year. According to the online booking service for hotels and apartments Ostrovok.ru, the average night booked in Paris during the Olympics costs 23 thousand rubles, which is 38% more expensive compared to the same period a month before the event (from June 26 to July 11 2024 - 16.7 thousand rubles).

True, during the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, the increase in prices in hotels was more pronounced, according to data from Ostrovok.ru: the average cost of a night in accommodation facilities was 6 thousand rubles, which is more than twice the period for the month before the Olympics (2.4 thousand rubles) and twice as expensive as a month after the games (3 thousand rubles).

The Olympic Games are not a sporting event that is among the most popular among Russian fans; more people go to Formula 1, says Lomidze. Sales for the European Football Championship in Germany, which will take place in June 2024, are much better than for the Paris Olympics, Ostrovsky admits. “The general interest in the Olympics has been reduced due to the absence of the Russian team at the competitions,” suggested Arthur Muradyan, general director of the tour operator Space Travel. “I think tourists will still come, but in small numbers.” Demand is affected by the difficulty of obtaining a Schengen visa and the lack of direct flights to Europe, says Daria Domostroeva, a representative of the Intourist tour operator; in addition, many tour operators currently do not work with European countries.

Wealthy fans turn to concierge services for support when traveling to the Olympic Games, says an RBC source in the tourism market. The Omnia Group concierge service told RBC that it receives “two to five requests per week for the Olympics” and expects “regular demand” for this service until the start of the games. A representative of the Enjoy Personal Concierge Services said that there are applications from Russian clients living in France, and there are also Russians interested in the trip who have already begun to queue up to apply for a French Schengen visa.

According to the rules, Russian tourists can apply for the Schengen visa required to travel to Paris no earlier than six months before the trip. The number of requests for visas to France increased in January 2024, a representative of VFS Global, the official partner of the French Consulate General in Russia, told RBC. But RBC’s interlocutor found it difficult to name specific numbers and clarify whether the increase in demand is related to the Olympics.

The United Visa Center agency says that it has already begun accepting applications for visas to attend the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Alina Gafurova, general director of the network, told RBC. In order to have time to arrange everything and get a visa, she recommends taking care of the documents now, but no later than two months before the trip. Temporary slots for submitting documents are available for the next five days from the date of application; visa processing by the consulate takes about 20 days. The approval rate for visas to France, according to Gafurova, remains at 95%.

How to buy tickets for the 2024 Olympics

Ticket sales for the first full-scale Olympic Games after the pandemic are taking place according to a new system proposed by the IOC back in 2021. Previously, purchases were made by drawing lots, and foreigners could purchase tickets through special ticket agents authorized by the countries' national Olympic committees. For each country, the IOC set a quota for fans depending on the composition of the team and the athletes participating in the competition.

In 2024, the sale of tickets to Olympic spectators, including international ones, will be carried out through a single official online platform - Paris 2024. “No other sales platform is authorized to sell tickets,” organizers warn, adding that buyers outside official channels risk that they may not receive tickets or be denied access to the events from the Paris 2024 organizing committee. No quotas were allocated for Russian fans, the press service of the Russian Olympic Committee clarified: “If anyone wants to attend the games, they can try to purchase tickets on their own through the ticket office portal of the Organizing Committee, if possible,” the press service added. In addition to tickets to the competition, the organizers also offer fans comprehensive services - a tourist package (includes tickets to the competition, accommodation, excursions in Paris and transfers) or a hospitality package (does not include accommodation) through a single supplier - On Location.

In total, about 10 million tickets are available for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, 80% of which were planned to be sold through the Paris 2024 platform. Tickets for the competition are sold in several stages. During the first two stages (from February 15 to March 9 and from May 11 to 19, 2023), 6.8 million tickets were sold. During the third stage, which started on July 5, tickets were sold in real time for competitions outside of Paris. At the end of November 2023, another 400 thousand tickets went on sale on the official platform - “this is one of the last opportunities to purchase tickets to see the games live in Paris,” the IOC warned.

Who bought the most tickets to the Olympics?

Based on IOC data, the bulk of tickets for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris were purchased by fans from France itself. Thus, during the first stage, the French purchased two-thirds of the tickets, and the top five were citizens of Great Britain , the usa , Germany and the Netherlands. Russians are not included in this list. As part of the second stage, 63.5% of buyers also turned out to be residents of France, the rest of the fans were from 178 countries, which ones were not specified. About 60% of tickets were sold at €100, 17% of tickets were sold at €24. RBC sent a request to the IOC.

How does ticket resale work?

Personalized tickets for the 2024 Olympic Games competitions. In the spring of 2024, the IOC announced the launch of an official platform for the resale of tickets for Olympic sporting events - the date of its opening is still unknown.

Exciting public events, including sports, often attract the attention of resellers, a source in one of the largest ticket distributors told RBC. Despite attempts by event organizers to combat the secondary market by, for example, introducing a sales system and passport entry to the stadium, loopholes for brokers remain.

Tickets for sale are divided into two groups, the interlocutor says. The first is the so-called hospitalities, which are sold through specialized representatives of the tournament organizers. Prices for such tickets are not indicated anywhere and are provided upon the client’s request. The package, in addition to tickets to the competition itself, includes food, transfers, accommodation, etc.

The second category is sponsorship tickets, the source continues. Each tournament sponsor is allocated a certain, often significant quota, which he distributes at his discretion among employees and partners. These tickets, as a rule, are not registered, and often they end up on the resale market.

Sergey Babich, organizer of the international music industry forum Colisium, points out that there are several secondary ticket exchanges in the world through which a significant portion of tickets for major events are sold. “These are resources available only to the closed professional community, because the most important component of being a ticket broker is reputation,” he explains.

The main part of a broker's job, according to Babich, is identifying projects with potentially high demand at an early stage and gaining access to the best locations. The audience for such brokers is usually a premium audience with exclusive needs (for example, meeting an artist or athlete) or spectators making a last-minute decision to attend an event.

The executive director of the ticket search service Favor, Kirill Kolchak, in a conversation with RBC, said that his company is already recording requests for the Olympics, including for the opening ceremony: several dozen requests have been received. But the “final price tag” (taking into account the high cost of the event, logistics and visa costs, as well as increased prices for hotels), according to Kolchak, “makes you think about the desire to attend the event, even despite its grandeur.” The opening price on the official website starts from €5 thousand per person (hospitality packages) to €9.5 thousand, says Kolchak. “If tickets are available, then the service markup is 10%, if there are no tickets and we are looking through contacts, connections and brokers, then the price of tickets depends on the market, but specifically we still set only 10% of the service fee.”

The head of the PortalBilet service, Vitaly Podlinnov, also speaks about the interest in the Olympics on the part of the Russian audience. However, he associates turning to brokers not so much with the difficulty of purchasing tickets, but also with concerns about obtaining a visa. “Our service plans to post offers for tickets to the Olympics, but there may be bans on this from the organizers,” he admits. “The markup will depend on the demand for specific games and their significance and can vary from 10% and much higher.”

If tickets for events have run out, there are specialized companies that have purchased these seats in advance, explains one of RBC’s interlocutors in the tourism market. Concierge services handle reservations and payments for tickets to sporting events, another source confirms.

“It’s always possible to purchase tickets for sporting events, because we mainly work with tickets that are not on public sale or that have run out,” the Right Hand concierge service responded to an RBC correspondent who introduced himself as a consumer. As the company explained, ticket sales are organized through partners, without specifying other details. The concierge service Jet Set Travel Club promises to provide consumers with tickets to competitions one to seven days before the start of the event in the Olympic Games application - they will be able to enter using the QR code of the ticket on their smartphone from the application.

The Omnia Group concierge service clarified that they also help with booking tickets for the Olympic Games and even offer “exclusive opportunities” - meetings with athletes and VIP access to the Olympic venues. “At the moment, we have already helped with the organization of 23 tickets for the 2024 Olympics for various sports. The personal history of the tickets does not affect this in any way; everyone will be allowed through,” adds a representative of the service.

Tickets for the 2024 Olympic Games are even offered by intermediaries on the Avito platform. One of these sellers, in a conversation with an RBC correspondent who introduced himself as a consumer, clarified that tickets for events will be in the application, and the name can be changed.

However, ALPS Legal partner Daniil Akderli points out that current Russian legislation allows the sale of tickets only either by the organizers of the event, or by companies authorized through a contract or by proxy. The only exceptions are cases when a person sells his own ticket once as unnecessary, and at the same purchase price, without markup, he clarifies.

According to Akderli, the risk of becoming a victim of scammers when buying tickets in person is high, since law enforcement officers do not have effective ways to monitor the implementation of legislation, and the laws themselves do not sufficiently regulate this area. “If we are talking about buying a ticket from an authorized person, then you can ask him for an agreement with the organization, a power of attorney,” warns the lawyer. “If a ticket is sold by an individual on the Internet with 100% prepayment, then there are no effective ways to check the validity of the ticket and eliminate the possibility of fraud.”

How France fights ticket resellers

In the summer of 2022, a scandal broke out in France related to the resale of tickets for the final match of the Champions League at the Stade de France. Then the Paris police identified several tens of thousands of spectators who came to the tournament with fake tickets. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called the incident a case of “industrial fraud,” and the head of Fimalac Entertainment, an organization dedicated to promoting French culture, blamed “Anglo-Saxon” ticket redistribution services for the situation. The reseller platform Viagogo was then identified as the key culprit.