Kyiv tourism industry lost USD 1B due to lockdown

Head of the Department of Tourism and Promotions of Kyiv City State Administration Maryna Radova said this at a briefing entitled "Restoration of the tourism sector in Kyiv amid a pandemic" held at Ukrinform.

"As of July, the Kyiv tourism sector suffered losses worth almost USD 1 billion. Last year, the tourist tax alone amounted to UAH 62 million, today it is UAH 30 million, and we hope that by the end of the year it will be UAH 40 million,” Radova said.

She said that in the conditions of quarantine restrictions, the tourism industry of the capital relies on digitalization, improving the quality of service and creating routes for the visually impaired.

Also, according to her, as a result of the lockdown, the number of foreign tourists in Kyiv has significantly decreased. This year, there were about 300,000 against almost 2 million last year. "This makes us look for new directions and partners, among which the countries of Scandinavia, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf are becoming promising,” she noted.

According to the Department of Tourism and Promotions of Kyiv City State Administration, as a result of the border closure in April-June 2020 due to the spread of COVID-19, the number of tourists in Kyiv decreased by 90%. In particular, the city was visited by 1.6 million people in 2019, and by 377.5 thousand people in 2020. The tourist tax for 11 months of 2020 in the capital was UAH 34 million against UAH 62 million last year.

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