Cresta adds Russian cities to 2001 deals

Cities and short-breaks programme

Cresta adds Russian cities to 2001 deals

Report by STEVEJONES

A STEADY improvement in the quality and infrastructure of eastern European cities has prompted Cresta to add Moscow and St Petersburg to its 2001 Cities and Short Breaks programme.

The operator said it now considered both cities safe and of good enough quality to add to its portfolio after years of uncertainty.

Brand manager Ian Ackland said: “We assessed the cities at the beginning of the year and are now satisfied the product is right. Major hotel chains have opened and we feel they are reliable destinations to offer.”

Both cities feature four and five-star hotels.

Also new to the programme is Cairo and Jerusalem.

“We were on the verge of featuring Cairo two years ago but pulled it at the last minute due to well documented security problems,” said Ackland.

Jerusalem departures do not begin until the new year by which time the current crisis may have eased, said Ackland.

“It’s not the best of timing to introduce the city and we’ll keep a careful eye on the situation to see whether or not to keep it on sale,” he added.

The Lisbon coast and Frankfurt have also been added and take the number of featured destinations to 117.

Gdansk, Gothenburg and Berne have been dropped from the brochure due to poor sales.

Cresta has also repositioned several of cities in other brochures to make way for new product.

Vancouver, Quebec and Montreal will now only feature in the stand-alone North America cities programme with The Hague and Delft now in the Paris and Amsterdam brochure.

For the first time, the brochure is promoting accommodation-only bookings.