Hospitality industry on planned basis

The State Agency of Ukraine for Tourism and Resorts (Derzhturyzmkurort) is drawing up a program of tourism development until the year 2022, Derzhturyzmkurort Chairperson Olena Shapovalova said. In her words, never before has the state resorted to target-oriented planning to pursue its policy in the field of tourism. “Taking into account the integrated nature of tourism, this approach will allow the relevant central and local bodies of public administration to synthesize all the necessary means of regulation and to avoid making uncoordinated decisions,” she says, stressing the advantages of this method. In this connection, Shapovalova says, the national hospitality industry has so far not cared about economic effectiveness in individual tourism development projects and the tourism field as a whole. “With due account of the importance of tourism for this country’s further socioeconomic development, the Cabinet of Ministers has instructed Derzhturyzmkurort to draw up a state target-oriented program of tourism development until 2022,” she says. The charting of the program will involve the best experts from the EU, the International Cooperation Agency of France’s Ministry for the Economy and Finance, and the German Society for International Cooperation. “We expect the program to be drawn up this year, and we will be able to begin implementing it as early as 2014, which is supposed to allow us, among other things, to adequately prepare tourist services as part of the 2015 European Basketball Championship which will be held in Ukraine,” the Derzhturyzmkurort chairperson added.

What do market participants themselves expect from the new program? The answer is from Ihor HOLUBAKHA, head of the All-Ukrainian Association of Tour Operators:

“A program like this is a must. It existed before 2010. The program should be aimed at developing domestic and foreign tourism, popularizing Ukraine’s tourist attractions abroad, and developing, as part of local government measures, the tourist clusters, municipal, and regional spots that are of interest for tourists. For the program to be viable, the state budget should have money for financing some of its items, such as, for example, transfer on a foreign territory. It is tour operators that are mainly engaged in advertising Ukraine: they take part in international exhibits and promote their advertisements. It is also important that this program should envisage drawing up a register of tourist objects and monuments of history and culture. But this should not be a commercial register. It should be public and easy of access to all. No money should be charged for putting information into this register. We also need legislative support for and transparent rules of the game on the tourist market so that new investment-attractive projects could be carried out.”