Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Oleh Rybachuk, has announced that Ukraine will cancel visas for citizens of European Union member states. He noted that Europeans who wish to travel to Kyiv for the Eurovision contest will have no problems. “We will change the visa requirements for foreigners, maybe not for all of them, but Europeans will have no problems with Ukrainian visas, as far as Eurotour and Eurovision are concerned,” he said.
According to Mr. Rybachuk, this decision will entail fundamental changes in the customs service and border security force, which will be vested with “absolutely different functions and responsibilities.” The deputy prime minister recalled that he was once a customs officer and is very well aware of border problems. This is why reforming these agencies will be “top-priority matter,” Mr. Rybachuk told Korrespondent.net . He also cited President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland and other heads of state, who said that “Ukraine begins with the customs office and border checkpoints.”
This is indeed a revolutionary step. That Ukrainian visa regulations are a key obstacle, primarily to the development of tourism, is a longstanding and persistent claim of the State Tourism Administration of Ukraine. According to 2004 statistics prepared by the Cabinet of Ministers’ press service, tourism generates an annual $400 million for Ukraine. Other sources claim that the visa regime for citizens of countries that are not the source of illegal migration problems for Ukraine has contributed to annual losses of at least 50 million dollars.
“Companies have been demanding the cancellation of visas for the last five years,” says Tetiana Voloshyna, general manager of the Olymp-Travel Company. In her view, the best option would be to follow the example of the Baltic states, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, which unilaterally canceled visas for EU countries. “Look: they didn’t make them free, they canceled them altogether,” she emphasizes.
Alla Nikitchenko, inland tourism manager at the Hamaliya Travel Company, shares this view, with one reservation. She claims that the cancellation of visas will create ambiguity in the work of travel agencies. We now offer tourist visa support when we provide a client with hotel accommodations, transfers, etc., i.e., we take care of the client from the moment s/he crosses the border. The tourist’s passport records what travel agency assumed this responsibility. So it is not quite clear who will be taking responsibility for the tourist’s safety if visas are canceled.
The Tourist Information Center of the National Tourist Organization (NTO) predicts that if visas are canceled for EU citizens, the influx of foreign travelers to Ukraine may increase by 20-30% as early as this coming summer. “During the first nine months of 2004 the number of tourists rose by 24% even under the existing visa regime (12 million, up 2.3 million in 2003). First of all, this may boost the number of tourists from the countries that have shown a steady interest in Ukraine, such as Germany, Italy, and the Baltic states,” said the center’s chairman Volodymyr Tsaruk.
In his words, a curious situation has cropped up at many tourist expositions in Europe where our country is represented. On the one hand, there is steadily growing interest in Ukraine, but on the other, the national tourist product is non-competitive today for two reasons: the process of obtaining and paying for a visa. “Why on earth would a German go on vacation to Ukraine if he can drive, without having to get a visa, to Croatia or Slovenia in three hours and enjoy a warm sea and clean beaches, or go without a visa to Turkey or Egypt?” says Tsaruk. “Applying for a visa is also a psychological problem. Europeans just don’t want to waste time on these trifles. If we want them to come here for a vacation, it’s high time we scrapped visas for them. But this step should be followed by solving another, no less painful, problem: liberalizing the visa regime for Ukrainian citizens traveling to European countries.”
Obviously, a positive solution to the visa problem will open up broad vistas for Ukraine in the field of tourism. This raises another logical question: what can we offer (above all, what level of service) the Europeans, who are starting to flood Ukraine? Well, there will hardly be a revolution in this field soon. Year after year the State Tourist Administration has persistently “hinted” that lawmakers should simplify the procedure of obtaining land and licenses for building new tourist facilities. In Poland, for instance, this problem can be solved within 20 days or so, while in Ukraine this procedure may take as many as 12 to 18 months. Construction, or, to be more exact, the heavy taxes involved in building projects, is also a big problem. By contrast, the countries that generate a considerable part of their budget through tourist revenues levy a reduced tax on tourist facilities under construction or reconstruction or exempt them from taxes altogether. Another example: Russia, in contrast to Ukraine, does not impose any taxes on imported hotel equipment. Is it any wonder then that some statistics remain unchanged year after year? Ukraine has one of the highest indicators for tourist accommodations: nearly 4,500 hotels, health and holiday centers with 620,000 beds. Despite this, Ukraine lags far behind other countries, as only 10% of these facilities meet European standards of service. The lawmakers have so far failed to take the “hint.”
Oleh Pikersky, head of the Artex Travel Company, points out that Ukraine has an insufficient number of skilled reception specialists, which affects the quality of service in hotels. There is also a problem with professional guides: “most of the veteran guides, the true enthusiasts of their occupation, are old, while young people are not attracted to this occupation, mainly because of the low salaries,” says this expert. There is also a shortage of high-quality hotels. For instance, while Moscow has 9 hotel rooms per 1,000 people and Paris has almost 40, in Kyiv and Ukraine this index is just 6 and 2, respectively.
INCIDENTALLY
Ukraine waives visa regulations for these countries: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Moldova, Mongolia, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. Countries that share an asymmetrical visa regime with Ukraine (for citizens of these countries no visa is required; for citizens of Ukraine a visa is required): Lithuania, Poland, Hungary. Other countries: owing to several factors, e.g., the principle of mutuality, every embassy sets its own tariffs that cannot surpass the maximum limit of the value of the visa, established by a resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers in 1999. The average cost of a single-visit Ukrainian visa for residents of Europe is 40-50 euros; for US residents, nearly $100.
