sfelts --- The Russains havnt pulled the plug on Goa . If you read the article carefully , you will see that , the intention of the Russains is to give a boost to their National Carrier, Aeroflot , who will and are now flying the route , to bring in the Russains .
Russia is still rooted in communism to a great extent , and this is just a bit of state intervention , to boost Aeroflots revenues at the cost of the private Airlines/Charters.
So The Russians will still get their Holidays , and the ones that are here will get home.

I still think the Russian tourist numbers will be less as one carrier will not be able to replace a number of airlines and if you read the Goan voice link, they are saying that Thailand and other asia countries are cheaper and more viable, so not a pull out as such, but to keep the numbers up they would have to use schedule flights instead.

Hi sfelts -- I think Aeroflot will cope !! The 2 charter companies affected only reqd 8 planes dedicated per wk to the Goa route , however , I think that indeed you may be right about "Russians no more" , I was in the company of a crowd of them last night ,watching the football , and according to them , Goa is getting to expensive , and get this , they reckon that their are far too many Indians about the place !!!, especially the beach and hotels !!! As regards the tour operators , they said that it wasnt unusual for their Govt to do crazy things , and they did say that Thailand was being pushed by the state tourist board back in Russia .It will be a pity if the Russians stop coming , as they were just starting to mingle in , and I found that they were a very interesting/humurous people.
I was in the Beach Queen shack this morning , and their was a crowd of Afghans in , thats the first time that I have come across , I didnt get a chance to speak to them , but I will be in their tomorrow and will try and strike up a conversation .

Don't like the sound of the Afghans especially as they are in the shack we usually use! We have enough problems with them fjust a couple of miles down the road from us at home.

Russia: Drop in demand to Goa.

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tourdom.ru%2Fnews%2F%3Farchive%26read%3D30455

With the current strength of the baht I doubt they will find Thailand cheaper than Goa

Papa

Goa has been full of domestic tourists for the past week, it's been pretty busy despite the rain on several days. 90% of tourists are domestic, and that includes our hotel, the balance are mainly Russian.