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.
An annual increase in the number of foreign tourists by at least 500,000 and a twofold increase in the number of Ukrainians traveling outside their region are some of the criteria for the effectiveness of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, according to the government’s program of activities through 2024.
“To do this, it is planned, first of all, to determine the place of Ukraine on the tourist map of the world, create brands from existing points of attraction and launch a program to promote them,” says the document, which was published to the parliament’s website.
Joining existing European tourist networks and cultural routes is also planned.
According to government estimates, successful implementation of the program will help increase the share of cultural, creative product, sports and tourism from 12% to 14% of GDP.
The Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture in 2018 said the number of foreign tourists visiting Ukraine decreased by about 400,000 for the first time in three years, amounting to 14.2 million people. At the same time, in the previous two years it grew rapidly: in 2017 – by almost a million and in 2016 – by 1.2 million.
Despite a decrease in the total number of tourists in 2018, Ukraine’s State Border Service recorded an increase in their number from countries that do not have common borders with Ukraine: from Spain – by 68%, Great Britain – by 47.3%, Lithuania – by 23.4%, Italy – 15.4%, Germany – 13.3%, France – 9.2%, and India – 57.4%, China – 38.8%, Japan – 38.3%, Israel – 21.7% and the United States – 19%.
