Ukraine teams up with travel companies to prepare for post-war tourism
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Steeplejacks waving the Ukrainian flag after installing Ukraine's coat of arms on the shield of the 62m-tall Motherland Monument in Kyiv, in August 2023.
PHOTO: AFP
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BERLIN – Ukraine’s state tourism agency has closed deals with several travel companies, including Airbnb, Expedia and visitBerlin, to help promote the country as a tourist destination once the war with Russia
A key project would be a route of war sites running from Irpin, near the capital Kyiv, to Chernobyl, crossing cities such as Bucha and Hostomel, said Ms Mariana Oleskiv, chairwoman for the State Agency for Tourism Development (SATD).
“The easiest way is to forget, but then you need to work through that trauma, and we need to tell it to the next generation first of all but also to international visitors,” she said, speaking on the sidelines of a travel fair in Berlin.
As yet, there is no sign that the war which began when Russian troops poured over the border in February 2022 will end any time soon.
Ms Oleskiv said the agency was looking for more platforms. They were meeting Tripadvisor and hoped to cooperate with Booking.com.
The aim was to have platforms and target audiences in place that could be activated as soon as the war is over, she said.
“So we hope, and that’s what we work for, to have more tourists than we had before,” Ms Oleskiv added.
In February, the United Nations cultural agency said US$9 billion (S$12 billion) over 10 years will be needed for Ukraine’s culture and tourism sectors to recover. The two-year-old war had so far cost the country more than US$19.6 billion in tourism revenue, it said.
“Hospitality is not the main industry where foreign investment will go, but we have a couple of investment funds interested in possibilities for what could be done in Ukraine later,” Ms Oleskiv said, without elaborating on possible investors.
In 2023, domestic tourism had recovered close to 2021 levels and the agency is focusing on those tourists to keep the industry alive.
Only 20 per cent of Ukrainians avoid travel in their country because of the danger, Ms Oleskiv said, citing a SATD study. REUTERS
