Egypt and Turkey are the most popular travel destinations among Ukrainians in 2021, according to Pavlo Hryhorash, the chief executive of the Ukrainian Travel Agencies Association.
The two countries get 70% of all outbound Ukrainian tourism thanks to their tourist-oriented policies developed during the pandemic, Hryhorash said.
Both states prioritize their tourism industry: the states have developed COVID-19 protocols that hotels, restaurants and transfer companies must follow.
Apart from that, Turkey and Egypt are traditionally popular destinations because of affordable prices, averaging at 500 euros per tour.
According to Hryhorash, the two leaders are followed by Sri Lanka, the Maldives, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.
Due to the travel restrictions, Ukrainians have a limited choice of where to spend their vacations. The Schengen Area, comprising 26 European states, remains closed to Ukrainian residents, which is why “tourists choose from what is open,” Hyrhorash says.
Apart from the mentioned countries, Ukrainians can now visit Tunisia, Georgia, Montenegro, Albany, Bulgaria, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Hryhorash says that when countries have well-developed COVID-19 protocols and adhere to them strictly, it encourages people to travel there during the pandemic. So does the inclusion of health insurance and PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests in the travel packages.
“Tourists need to know that they will be taken care of if anything happens,” Hryhorash told the Kyiv Post.
The countries whose economy depends heavily on tourism sometimes even prioritize visitors over their own residents.
The lockdown introduced in Turkey on April 29, forced its residents to stay at home but hasn’t affected tourists, who can still visit sights, restaurants and stores without restrictions.
Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said in the interview with the Kyiv Post that the diplomacy is “working hard to make the new travel environment as accessible for Ukrainians as possible in constant dialogue with the European Union.”
Despite the pandemic, in 2020, Ukrainians crossed the border around 11 million times, according to the State Border Service. In 2019, that number was nearly seven times bigger, 75 million.
Globally, tourism fell by 74% in 2020 but is gradually returning to life, the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization reported. However, the industry is not expected to fully recover until 2023 or even 2024.
