MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. Tour operator Tez Tour has launched sales of vouchers to the Chinese island of Hainan with a direct flight from Moscow, the company's press service reported.

"There is a new addition to Tez Tour tour operator's portfolio: GDS tours with a direct flight from Moscow to Sanya airport of Hainan Island via Aeroflot. Departures will be carried out from December 27 on Wednesdays, arrivals on Thursdays, tours for 7, 14, 21 and 28 nights", the message stated.

Biblio Globus has also started offering tours to Hainan, the press service of the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RST) said. They noted that the Russian travel business has long been waiting for direct flights to this destination, but tour operators are still unclear whether entry to the island will be visa-free. According to experts, one flight a week is not enough for a major destination.

leksan Mkrtchyan, general director of the Pink Elephant agency network, believes that tour operators will offer tours to Hainan on visa-free lists. "This is certainly a plus. But in general, one flight a week from Moscow and even two in the long term is so little that there is no need to expect any breakthrough in the Chinese direction or just an impact on the market," he believes.

Evgeny Glotov, head of marketing department of China Travel, emphasized that Hainan was a very popular destination before the pandemic due to charter flights and the corresponding cost of tours. Now the prices have increased significantly, the tour will cost at least 100 thousand rubles (around $1,110) per person. The cost of tickets to the island at the moment starts at 75 thousand rubles in both directions, RST added.

Earlier Aeroflot announced the launch of direct regular flights from Moscow to Hainan Island on December 27. At the initial stage flights to Sanya will be carried out once a week on Wednesdays on wide-body Airbus A330 airliners. In the future, the air carrier plans to introduce a second weekly flight on Sundays.