Since early 2006 some 15 million foreign tourists visit Ukraine

Since early 2006 Ukraine has been visited by 14.9 million foreign tourists, which was 8% more than in the relevant period of 2005. This was what a meeting between Ukrainian Minister for Culture and Tourism Yuriy Bohutsky and President of the European Travel Commission Arthur Oberascher dealt with, “Cabinet press office” reported.

Ukraine is mostly visited by Russians (30%), Poles (28%), Moldovans (16%), Hungarians and Belarussians (8% each), Slovaks (3%), Romanians and Germans (1% each), Americans (0.5%) and Turks (0.4%).

For the second year at a run Ukraine witnesses a trend of rapid increase of the number of tourists from countries, which had never shown a particular interest toward Ukraine. The trend is explained with the invalidation of the visa regime for that countries. The pace of growth of the number of tourists from Austria in the second half of 2006, if compare with the first half of 2005, reached 50%, from the Czech Republic and Latvia 43%, Great Britain 41%, Italy 30%, France and Lithuania 24%.

The parties to the meeting also discussed creating conditions for closer accession of Ukraine to the European tourist community.

With a view of enhancing the treaty - legal basis in tourism, 45 agreements between the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine and foreign governments have been signed. In 2006 draft intergovernmental and interagency agreements on cooperation in tourism with over 20 countries were elaborated.