Financial crisis as well as the revolutions and riots in Africa have a negative impact on the tourism industry. However, the Slovak Association of Travel Agents expects that this year will bring better results in the local travel trade than the two previous years.
Slovak travel agencies expect that they will be able to sell the same amount of outbound trips this year as they did before the crisis in 2008. Almost 630,000 Slovaks traveled abroad at that time but the performance dropped by a sixth in 2009. According to the Slovak Association of Travel Agents only some 582,000 Slovaks traveled abroad last year.
The most popular destination for this year will be as usual Croatia, which is the holiday spot number one for more than 400,000 Slovaks every year. Most of them, however, travel to the country individually.
As Etrend.sk reported, the second most demanded destination will be Turkey. Interest in Northern African destinations has significantly dropped. This affected Egypt as well although it has always been a very popular destination among Slovaks. On the other hand, the tricky economic situation in Greece is unlikely to scare off many Slovak tourists. They will also probably travel a lot to Spain and Bulgaria.
Last year only two Slovak travel agencies bankrupted. The association claims that Slovakia records much fewer bankruptcies of travel agencies in comparison to other countries.