Russian tourism business consolidates to go online

Tour operators Orient buro and RVB-Alean group with joint market share 10-25% are investing together about $1mln in a single online-booking service. They release beta in april and plan to have it aunched by september. According to Orient's CEO Anatoliy Gusev the project is too expensive to go for it on one's own. However forecasters suppose thå present partnership signals of companies' future plan to merge, although RVB-Alean disproved this assumption. In any case most players aren't ready to follow these two within the next few years, analysts say.