German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Russia on August 20 and will travel to Ukraine on August 22, German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin on Friday.
“The chancellor will visit Moscow on Friday and Kyiv on Sunday,” Seibert said.
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.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, in a telephone conversation with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, invited a delegation of Saudi business representatives to visit Ukraine and assess the country’s investment opportunities.
“Dmytro Kuleba invited a delegation of Saudi investors and company leaders to visit our state to assess investment opportunities for doing business and the possibility of participating in a large privatization program. The Minister expressed hope that trade issues will be successfully considered in October at the next meeting of the Intergovernmental Ukrainian-Saudi Commission on economic and scientific-technical cooperation in Riyadh,” the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reports.
Kuleba himself said that Saudi investments are already working successfully in Ukraine.
“We will welcome their increase. Ukraine is a country of new economic opportunities, especially in the fields of energy, IT, infrastructure, healthcare, agricultural and industrial sectors,” the minister said.
The parties noted the positive dynamics of bilateral relations since their previous conversation in the past, including the holding of the first in eleven years of political consultations between the foreign ministries, and also agreed to continue to maintain a high rate of development of relations between Ukraine and Saudi Arabia.
Kuleba noted a significant increase in the number of tourists from Saudi Arabia in Ukraine, which became possible due to the abolition of visa requirements by Ukraine and the opening of direct flights. The Minister expressed hope that next year the number of Saudi guests will increase further, which should be facilitated, in particular, by the granting of additional permits to Ukrainian carriers for regular flights to Saudi Arabia.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, in turn, expressed gratitude for the warm welcome of his compatriots, which strengthens friendly ties between the two countries. He also noted strong trade ties and expressed his conviction that the two countries have great potential for the development of trade and investment.
The parties expressed their readiness to work on the preparation of high-level visits. The Saudi Minister accepted the invitation to visit Ukraine and invited his Ukrainian counterpart to pay a visit to Saudi Arabia.
Since the beginning of the year, Kiev has been visited by 308,000 foreign and more than 500,000 domestic tourists, deputy head of Kyiv City State Administration Maryna Khonda has said.
“According to the State Border Guard Service, most of the foreign tourists came from the United States – 26,576 people. Israel is in the second place – 22,684 people, and Turkey closes the top three – 21,057 tourists. The list of countries from which a lot of tourists came from also includes Germany, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Great Britain, Georgia and India,” Khonda said.
According to her, the tourism development will become one of the main priorities for Kyiv after the pandemic. A number of important projects are currently being implemented to increase the tourist attraction of the city. In particular, the Hospitality Academy recently began its work in Kyiv to train volunteer assistants in the field of tourism. Also in Kiev, they plan to create an inclusive tourist route that will unite the most famous sights.
Maryna Khonda also said that since the beginning of the year, UAH 22.5 million in tourist tax have been collected.
On July 15-18, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland Marcin Przydacz will pay a visit to Ukraine. Meetings with Deputy Minister Vasyl Bodnar at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Sybiha are scheduled. In addition, a meeting with the leadership of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission and acquaintance with the security situation in the frontline zone in Luhansk region, as well as a meeting with local Poles are planned. In the second part of the visit, Deputy Minister Marcin Przydacz will take part in the pilgrimage celebrations in Berdychiv, which will also be attended by the Secretary of State, Government Commissioner for the Polish Diaspora and Poles Abroad, Mr. Jan Dziedziczak, Secretary of State Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Jarosław Sellin.
Since July 2020, some 1.3 million Ukrainian tourists have visited Egypt, among them about 30 cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease have been recorded during this period, Vice Minister for Tourism at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt Ghada Shalaby told reporters on Wednesday.
According to her, during the specified period, among Ukrainian tourists vacationing in Egypt, one or two deaths from COVID-19 were recorded.
Shalaby said that currently, in the main resort regions of Egypt – Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, 400 beds have been prepared for tourists in hospitals, where they can be hospitalized in case of a severe course of COVID-19.
In these clinics, 120 lung ventilators are installed, to which patients can be connected if necessary.
According to Shalaby, if a foreign tourist needs to be hospitalized with COVID-19 in other regions, in particular in Cairo, local clinics are used, in which there is no shortage of places for tourists.
There are always places in clinics if necessary, she said.
Shalaby said that the treatment of tourists from COVID-19 is covered by insurance that tourists purchase.
Commenting on the issues of vaccination against COVID-19, Shalaby said that Egypt recognizes all vaccines registered in the world, including the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine and documents confirming the completion of the full vaccination course.
She did not rule out that over time, Egypt will be able to offer tourists the opportunity to vaccinate against COVID-19 on commercial terms.
Shalaby said that Egypt’s tourism workers are currently being actively vaccinated.
She said that those workers in the tourism industry who have not yet been vaccinated are transferred to those areas of work where there is no direct contact with tourists. Only vaccinated people work with tourists.
Shalaby said the authorities have now increased the allowed hotel occupancy rate from 50% to 70%. At the same time, she predicts that this figure is unlikely to be increased in the near future.
It is unlikely that 100% hotel occupancy will be accommodated, Shalaby said.
