Friday, May 05, 2006

Green And Traditional Tourism in Ukraine Reports a 13% Increase In 2005 Over 2004; Western City Of Lviv Celebrates 750th Anniversary

"Whether green or traditional, tourism in Ukraine appears to be rising steadily. In 2005, 17.6 million tourists visited Ukraine, Ukraine's State Tourism Administration reported on its website. This was a 13-per-cent increase from 2004, or an additional 3.1 million visitors.

This trend should continue, with a projected 19.6 million visitors expected to come to Ukraine in 2006, the STA reported.

According to industry experts and tourism agencies, growth in 2005 was due in part to practical considerations, such as Ukraine's abolition of its visa regime with neighbouring EU countries and its gradually improving infrastructure, as well as subjective factors like the Orange Revolution and Eurovision-2005, which most likely aroused the interest of some of Ukraine s visitors last year.

That travelers from the EU, Canada and the United States no longer require visas to come to Ukraine has resulted in a palpable increase in tourists from these countries. This is evident not only in the statistics provided by the STA, but by increased business for Ukrainian tourism agencies in 2005.

Slovakia, Poland and Romania provided an additional 155,000, 1.7 million and 64,000 visitors to Ukraine, respectively, in 2005. This marks a 98, 95 and 65 percent year-on-year increase from these countries, in that order. Thirty-four per cent more Germans came to Ukraine in 2005 (189,546) and the number of Israeli tourists increased by 15 per cent (51,186).

Overall, tourists to Ukraine are now more frequently opting to travel independently, making their own arrangements, according to STA statistics....

Although traditional tourism still predominates in Ukraine, other forms of tourism have begun taking off.

While traditional tourism requires significant investments in hotels, roads and transportation infrastructure, such as rail lines, green, eco and extreme tourism require much less capital to flourish. Moreover, for budget travelers and international students coming to Ukraine, a network of less expensive hostels is also being developed.

Rural green tourism is aimed at promoting relaxation in Ukraine's diverse countryside, where tourists can rent rooms in private village homes and try their hand at everything, from gardening to picking mushrooms in the woods. The development of green tourism in Ukraine is also part of a concerted effort by the Ukrainian government to economically revive Ukraine s rural areas, which with their aging population, can no longer effectively sustain agricultural production.

The Union to Promote Rural Tourism in Ukraine, a public non-profit organisation founded in 1996, lists on its website private homes available to rent in most of Ukraine's regions. Interested parties state the prices they are willing to pay per night with a meal, when they order." ...

Hotels Magazine May 5, 2006 via EASTBUSINESS.ORG [Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc]

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/














Click on Image to Enlarge.

Lviv, Ukraine. Lower Ramparts (now Prospect Svobody) during the 19th c. Austro-Hungarian Empire . Lithograph by K. Auer, 1844. Lviv History Museum (LHM).

Leopolis, Lemberg, Lwow, Lvov, Lviv -- The Cultural Capital of Eastern Europe.

Lviv, Ukraine -- the Unofficial European City of Culture 2006 -- Celebrates 750 Years Of Multicultural Toleration and Cooperation!

A UNESCO World Heritage Site:

http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=865


Photo credit: Lviv History Museum via lvivbest.com With thanks.

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