Crimea expected to accommodate more foreign tourists
Various agencies at the Crimean Council of Ministers assess the results of the 2003 resort season differently. Crimean Economy Minister Volodymyr Kulish noted at a cabinet meeting in October that “the results of the [tourist] industry are more than modest,” adding that in the first nine months of 2003 (the tourist season is practically over in September) 4.57 million persons had visited the Crimea, which was only 2,700 more than in January- September last year (a 0.5% increment), with organized tours down by almost 3%: to 978,500. In addition, all local budget receipts were also down. While they registered an overall increase of 13.6% throughout the autonomous republic, the increment in the resort areas was a mere 9%. In 2002, it was 2.5 times that of the Crimean average. “I think that this situation must be thoroughly analyzed when summing up the holiday season,” Volodymyr Kulish pointed out. The peninsula accommodates 626 resorts, including 229 run by the state, meaning that they are supervised by Department of Ministries and Agencies of Ukraine. The Crimea owns 149 resorts, including 59 run by the state, among them 27 children’s resorts.
Still, at yearend the results were better than anticipated by the economy minister. Already in mid-October the number of vacationers had increased by 6.2% compared to last year, reaching 4.68 million. The so-called organized tourists totaled one million. In eleven months direct returns from resort enterprises to all budgets constituted UAH 99 million against the year’s planned UAH 105 million. Crimean Resort and Tourism Minister Oleksandr Tarianyk also said at the cabinet meeting that the plan would be fulfilled. The industry proved him right; in late December 98 resorts were functioning in the Crimea, 14 (16.7%) more than at the end of last year. On New Year’s Eve they accommodated 9,045 individuals, 1,630 (22%) more than last year. On New Year’s the Crimean resorts were at one-third of their capacity. Statistics show that the Crimean resorts accommodated 1.81 million organized vacationers, along with 208,900 registered outside of organized tours in 2003. Transport records indicate that the number of arrivals since the start of the year had increased by 5.7% compared to last year, reaching 5,200,000 (in 2002, a million vacationers were registered at the New Year).
Perhaps only the resort and tourism minister and the managers of resorts know what this increment has cost. The following are the main landmarks of the 2003 holiday season. The Crimean program for the rebirth of the Great Silk Trail for the first time won a Ukrainian presidential grant of UAH 5 million. This fair cum festival in Sudak in 2003 gathered participants from fifteen countries (Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Poland, Germany, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Italy, Slovenia, China, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Austria, and Turkey). Next year, this festival is expected to be held in two stages; in the fall as a tourist fair and sometime in May as a Great Silk Trail Business Forum.
A number of Armenian firms complained that they were not receiving enough Crimean resort accommodations, while there were many tourists eager to spend their holidays on the peninsula, said AT Tourism CEO Arsen Fidanjan of Yerevan. Even though last year Armenian travel agencies were busy delivering vacationers from Armenia to Anapa, Temriuk, Kuchuhura, and Blue Bay, “a great many tourists wanted to spend their vacations in Yalta, and especially at Saky,” noted Mr. Fidanjan, adding that transport problems were the setback, as the only way to get to the Crimea from Armenia was by plane, meaning that rail and motor routes had to be made available.
The Crimea has long maintained contact with Kazakhstan, and Kazakh delegates once again invited Crimean residents to spend their holidays in that country, offering extreme tourism and seeing a number of places of interest, said Abdjemil Abdulkhairov, advisor to the honorary Kazakh consul. And there were a great many Kazakh tourists eager to visit the peninsula, so the special railroad car attached to the train on its run to the Crimea twice every week was always packed. Mr. Abdulkhairov noted that Kazakh children had been accommodated at Crimean resorts for two years. Kazakh big-time businesspeople were interested in the expansion of such accommodations for both children and adults, he said, adding, “I believe that our contacts in terms of tourism and science will become even stronger.”
Last year, the Crimea’s contacts with European countries also strengthened. Italy plans to set up a school in the Crimea where everyone wishing to do so will be taught Italian free of charge, said Gaetano la Versa, President of the Sicily-Crimea Association. He also stated that such knowledge would help students win jobs at resorts, hotels, and shopping centers. His association had generated a web site telling Italians about Crimean places of interests and resort accommodations. “These are our first projects and we hope that they will pave the way for more active Italian- Ukrainian cooperation,” stressed Mr. Gaetano la Versa.
Last year, the third German travel agency showed an interest in organizing tours to the Crimea, so that the number of German tourists is likely to increase by at least one-third during the next holiday season, said Resort and Tourism Minister Oleksandr Tarianyk, adding that such growing interest was explained by the effective performance of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s consular station at Simferopol Airport, issuing entry visas to guests from EU countries, Canada, the USA, Japan, and Turkey. A German travel agency was pleasantly surprised to learn that 87 of its customers received such visas within 46 minutes, noted the minister.
Special itineraries have been worked out for tourists from Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, the Czech Republic, and other countries where people have ethnic roots in the Crimea. These routes include visits to architectural, cultural, and religious sites. Crimean tourist organizations have developed and are effectively carrying out tours meant to familiarize visitors with local ethnic cultures, crafts, and traditions. According to the minister, the Crimea has of late concentrated on expanding foreign tourism. Vacationers from Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Germany, US, UK, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Israel, and Turkey prefer to spend their holidays on the peninsula.
Minister Tarianyk noted that 2004 would mark a turning point, as the Crimean government planned to carry out the principal reforms to raise the tourist industry to today’s level. The Resort and Tourism Ministry initiated the opening of public corporations to secure rational use and preservation of natural medicinal resources, muds and spas, mostly with local authorities holding an interest. “We came up with the initiative and sent a letter to Ukrprofzdravnytsia; they have agreed,” he said, adding that hydrological stations at Saky and Yevpatoriya are part of the privately held Ukrprofzdravnytsia Company. The hydropower station of Feodosiya is run by the Crimean trade unions. “Being non-governmental organizations, these stations cannot exercise full control over the preservation and usage of natural medicinal resources,” declared Mr. Tarianyk. In 2003, the extraction of therapeutic muds increased by 96.4% compared to last year and this provided returns to all budgets to the tune of UAH 429,500 - or 44.9% more than in 2002.
Oleksandr Tarianyk noted that such muds had been uncontrollably exploited for several years by various agencies and individuals, and that the absence of control and measures to preserve natural medicinal resources would result in their destruction. Thus, the brine, silt, and muds in a number of lakes at Yevpatoriya and Feodosiya were already losing their medicinal properties. Also, for want of master plans, parcels of lands were being allocated, so that now there was the actual threat of such natural medicinal resources falling into private hands. Mr. Tarianyk proposed requesting the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine that the preservation and exploitation of the natural medicinal resources, development of the hydromineral and mineral base of the Crimean resorts be placed under the control of the state, in the person of the Crimean government. He stated that the Crimean Resort [and Tourism] Ministry studied the experience of spas in the Caucasus to solve the medicinal resources problem; there they had centralized the hydrobiological service and set up a public corporation with mostly municipal or federal property funds holding interests.
Thus Resort and Tourism Minister Oleksandr Tarianyk proposed to reorganize the Crimean resort network the way they did in Russia, gradually allowing resorts to be privately owned. His plan envisages the state selling its interest to private owners, thus attracting private capital, “so that in ten to fifteen years all government stocks will be sold out, thus raising the resort industry to the contemporary civilized level.”
