Attractive, but not profitable

Last year 23 million tourists visited our country. In 2011 it was 21 million tourists. Ahead of Ukraine with a slight margin were Austria, Russia, and Malaysia. The most popular country among tourists is France – last year 83 million travelers visited this country. On average they spent 650 US dollars per trip in France. In Germany the amount of money spent by each tourist is twice as much, while in the US – three times. As for Ukraine, travelers spent their time quite modestly here, spending an average of 200 US dollars.

“Recently, the name of our country has been more and more in the news, it is known by those who recovered from the crisis and start traveling again. Many have already been to other countries and that’s why view Ukraine as a new destination point, especially since it is so reasonably priced,” explained Ruslan MIROSHNYCHENKO, director of a travel agency “Kraina UA.” However, according to him, “Ukraine has a very high tourist potential, which still has to be fully realized.” “Foreign tourists are only interested in Kyiv, Lviv, somewhat in Odesa – these are the places that can offer a full range of services for tourists (normal hotels, restaurants, relatively good transportation).

Other places that have become popular among domestic tourists (the Carpathians, Shatsk Lakes, castles of western Ukraine, Askania-Nova, Khortytsia, etc.), are not well-known to the foreigners, that’s why they rarely visit them. Still a lot needs to be done for the development of tourism infrastructure. One of the main disadvantages is the terrible roads, strange and uncomfortable public transportation, Soviet or too provincial hotels, poor service in restaurants, insufficient opportunities for payment with credit cards, local population that doesn’t speak foreign languages, etc,” said Miroshnychenko.

Experts on Ukrainian tourism market say that these are the areas that need to be improved to make tourism bring money for the state budget because natural and historical attractions alone are not enough. “For now, Ukraine is initially viewed as a cheap destination. It has relatively inexpensive restaurants, museums are very cheap, incredibly cheap public transport, and cheap theaters. The number of interesting and expensive proposals is limited,” concluded Miroshnychenko.

However, it is encouraging that more of such proposals appear on the market. A recent example – new unique places have been opened for tourists in the Crimea.