Thirty-two countries have imposed restrictions in connection with an outbreak of coronavirus in China, the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said.
“By mid-January, 32 countries in the world have imposed special restrictions on tourist entry associated with travel from China. Most of them are Asian and European countries,” the report said.
According to the organization, this could slow the recovery of international tourism after the coronavirus pandemic, as China was the largest outbound tourism market in the world until 2020. In 2022, international tourist arrivals were reported to be only 63% of pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
On January 8, Chinese authorities lifted some of the restrictions on travel to the country for foreign tourists and the departure of its citizens abroad. However, due to the coronavirus outbreak in the country after abandoning the “zero tolerance for covid” policy, many governments began imposing entry restrictions on tourists who had visited China before traveling to their country. In particular, Japan, South Korea, India, the United States, Spain, Italy, and many other countries require such passengers to test negative for coronavirus or proof of vaccination, and some have introduced mandatory testing.
Malta has closed the entrance for tourists from Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reported.
“Travel is prohibited. To enter the country, you must obtain a special permit, which is issued under exceptional circumstances,” the statement on the website of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry tripadvisor.mfa.gov.ua. reported.
It is indicated that from now on, only citizens of Ukraine are allowed to enter Malta who have valid Maltese ID or Residence card documents and have a permanent residence in Malta and have a valid recognized vaccination certificate or are under 12 years of age and may request to be quarantined in an alternative location, provided that meet certain criteria.
In particular, no more than four additional persons will live at the place of quarantine (except for those who will be quarantined); Persons who are 12 years of age or older who live at the same address as those returning from the dark red zone countries, will be fully vaccinated.
Non-residents of Malta of any age who must undergo quarantine, unvaccinated residents of Malta from 12 years of age traveling from countries of the dark red zone and those who are not allowed to undergo quarantine in an alternative location must undergo a 14-day quarantine at hotels officially approved by the Ministry of Health of Malta, exclusively at your own expense.
More than 3 million tourists visited Odesa in 2021, Mayor of the city Hennadiy Trukhanov has said.
“Today, we are entering the pre-COVID period and have the following data: more than 3 million tourists visited Odesa this year,” he said at a meeting of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine on Thursday in Kyiv.
According to him, the growth of the indicator was influenced by the launch of the airfield complex, as well as the creation of a pedestrian zone in the center of Odesa.
“We are implementing the project and have created a pedestrian center, which is the largest in Ukraine – more than 6 km, 10 streets, squares, parks. There are 170 architectural monuments in the pedestrian center zone, of which 31 are monuments of national importance,” Trukhanov said.
At the same time, the mayor asked for state support in the renovation of the Odesa park Yuvileiny.
Some 32,000 tourists have visited the Chornobyl exclusion zone since the beginning of the year, assistant director of the state enterprise Center for Organizational, Technical and Information Support of the Exclusion Zone Management (COTIS) Kyrylo Harnyk has said.
According to him, the data are relevant for August 11. Earlier, in 2019, it was planned to reach 1 million tourists a year, but in 2020 the tourist flow has decreased significantly.
“We have already managed to get better results than in 2018, when we received 36,000 tourists for the whole year, but we are unlikely to achieve the results of 2019, with 124,000 tourists,” Harnyk said during a roundtable talk on the preservation of Prypiat and Duga facilities in Chornobyl on Thursday.
As reported, in February 2021, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, the State Agency for Tourism Development and the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management signed a memorandum on the promotion of visits to the territory of the exclusion zone of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.
Some 2.5 million tourists visited Lviv in 2019, which is 10% less than last year, the Tourism Department of Lviv City Council has reported. “Some 2.5 million tourists visited Lviv in 2019 and 37% of them were Ukrainian citizens,” reads the statement.
According to the Tourism Department, this figure is 10% lower than in 2018. However, the number of tourists from Poland who visited Lviv in 2019 increased by 2%, to 18.3%. Some 6.6% were tourists from Belarus, 6.2% – from Turkey, 5.4% – from Germany and 3% – from the UK.
Around 46% tourists traveled to Lviv by train, 30.8% – by airplane, 11.8% – by car and 11.6% – by bus.
“A tourist stayed in Lviv on the average for 3.8 days and spent around EUR 94 per day,” reads the statement.
Around 1.5 million foreign tourists and 2.2 million Ukrainian tourists visited Kyiv in January through September, 2019, Kyiv City Council has reported.
“According to the Tourism Promotion Department of Kyiv City State Administration, 1.5 million foreign tourists visited the capital over the review period. Around 2.2 million Ukrainian tourists also visited Kyiv. The city received tourism fees in amount of UAH 61 million,” reads the statement on the city council’s website posted on December 11.
The report on the implementation of the targeted program for tourism development in Kyiv over nine months in 2019 reads that the municipal authorities regularly control the quality of services provided for tourists in the capital city. In particular, a working group was created to check hostels.
“Regular checks are held at the hostels that raise concern according to the approved schedule. We have checked 105 such facilities. Only around a dozen of hostels regularly pay taxes, tourism fees and meet the sanitary standards,” the chairman of the standing commission for culture, Viktoria Mukha, said.
According to the report, a range of large-scale events were held in Kyiv over the first nine months of the year to attract tourists, including Moto Open Fest, Kyiv Food & Wine Festival, Courage Bazaar, Atlas Weekend, Kyiv Art Week.
The tourism department also participated in five international exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad, in particular in Serbia, Azerbaijan, London and Dublin, with the aim of improving Kyiv’s tourism attractiveness.
