A classic suite for two in a two-star hotel Holosiivskyi in Kyiv that normally costs Hr 1,350 ($51) per night would cost Hr 75,000 ($2,800) on May 26.
This is one of the cheapest of about 30 rental options available at the apartment booking service Booking.com for the night of the UEFA Champions League Final, which will take place in Kyiv on May 26.
The final match, held between Spanish Real Madrid and English Liverpool, is expected to attract more than 70,000 tourists to Ukraine’s capital. In anticipation for the match day, the owners of hotels and renting apartments in Kyiv raised the prices up to 100 times, a move described by many as a rip-off.
According to the English tabloid newspaper Daily Star, this is exactly what a spokesman for London’s Liverpool supporters club told, criticizing the overpriced offers, and adding that the majority of the Liverpool fans “are working class, not millionaires,” and they would rather fly in and out at the same day.
However, many of the rooms that costed hundreds and thousands of dollars were still booked by football fans, who, as Ukraine’s National Bank assessed, were supposed to spend only some $100-$150 a day while in Kyiv.
One of the booked apartments, according to the Booking.com, is an apartment at the Kyiv’s left bank in Naberezhnaya Apartment complex with the view on the Dnipro River. It would cost its guests Hr 150,000 ($5,600) per night. The one-bedroom apartment also has a kitchen, a bathroom, and a wi-fi, the offer reads. Guests will also be able to order a breakfast for Hr 300 per person.
It’s quite a price for Kyiv, which was listed among the cheapest traveling destinations in the 2018 study by the air transport company Hoppa, with $86 being an average price for one-night rent.
Rental chaos
Anna Romanova, a Samopomich Party lawmaker and the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s tourism development, resort and recreational activity committee, believes that the prices have risen up so much “not because the landlords are greedy.”
“This is the consequence of an absolute chaos on Ukraine’s accommodation market being out of control for many years, as 90 percent of the business of rental apartments, hostels and rooms is in shadow,” Romanova told the Kyiv Post on May 5.
Since 1991, only 243 hotels in Ukraine, or 3-5 percent, have passed the so-called star rating test that classifies hotels according to their quality, she said.
The procedure, provided by the tourism department of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade is still bureaucratic and long, with only some 30 hotels passing the star test per year. Moreover, Ukrainian stars system is far from the European standards, Romanova said.
“The stars categorization system in Europe strictly regulates the prices and service not only for hotels, but also for hostels, private houses and flats. Ukrainian hospitality industry really needs it,” Romanova added.
According to Sergey Didkovsky, Adwise Agency PR-strategist and co-founder of the Kyiv-based Restoranskiye consulting agency, such lack of regulations in the hospitality industry can damage Kyiv’s and Ukraine’s slowly growing popularity among the international tourists.
He said the price hike before a major international event like Venice or Cannes film festivals, or Olympics, is normal as the demand breeds supply.
Still, there must be some limits, since Kyiv is yet hardly a top vacation destination. Many landlords and hotels try to seize the moment raising the prices without thinking about the future perspectives, Didkovsky believes, saying that they want to “milk the maximum money at the very moment.”
The result can be painful though, as after visiting Kyiv once a tourist wouldn’t want to come back because of the sky-high prices for accommodation, he said, and the landlords, having milked hundreds thousands once, will lose millions in future.
