Demand recovers: what is happening with tourism in Ukraine, and how have prices changed

Despite constant threats and instability, Ukrainians are not giving up on travel. The focus is on safe destinations: Lviv region, Ivano-Frankivsk region, and Zakarpattia. However, the industry faces new difficulties: seasonal price fluctuations, shortage of personnel. Volodymyr Tsaruk, director of the Tourism Development Center, said this in a comment to UNN.

State and statistics of tourism during the warAccording to Tsaruk, Ukrainians are currently choosing to travel to western Ukraine – Ivano-Frankivsk region, Lviv region, Zakarpattia.

These three regions are the most interesting places and where most tourists go, because, firstly, they have a sufficiently large hotel base. Secondly, the infrastructure is well-established, and thirdly, there are convenient transport links.

According to him, although people choose to travel to the sea, the security situation is not yet such that one can say that a significant number of Ukrainians will go to the sea.

This is the first, and the second – as we can see, June was abnormally cold, so the sea, and even if the security situation were different, June would still be a failed month

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Main types of domestic tourismHe noted that while the war is going on, people will go on vacation to the western regions, where there is mountainous terrain.

“In any case, not to the sea, because the security situation, unfortunately, is not conducive to recreation,” adds Tsaruk.

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Problems and challenges of developmentAccording to him, unfortunately, the situation that was last year continues, when most hotel bookings are made by people in the short term.

“That is, the decision is made a week before the trip, 10 days, a maximum of a month. These are most of the people who book, who make decisions,” the expert notes.

He emphasizes that tourism is not detached from what is happening in the country.

“Of course, there is also the problem of staff shortages. And accordingly, this affects the quality of services in a certain way. Staff has to be found, and it is not easy to find them now, and again, the situation in the country is such that not everyone will agree to go to work in hotels. However, I would not say that this greatly affects the service. These are, let’s say, visually isolated cases. Tourists do not notice this yet, because there is no such mass tourism as before the war, and again, hotels are not even 100% full now,” the expert notes.

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How prices have changedAccording to the expert, nothing stands still, everything is getting more expensive, and not only tourism, but also labor costs, gasoline, etc.

“Therefore, undoubtedly, the hospitality sector also reacts to this, and it is undoubtedly necessary to partially raise prices to be profitable. But all this is correlated, because the tourism segment is such that there are peak dates, a peak period, where everyone earns. Like airline tickets, that is, if you are going to travel in July-August now, even budget airlines are making good money on you now. And if you are going to travel in October and November, then of course you can go to good destinations at very attractive prices – 29 or 39 euros. It’s the same here. Prices could have gone up even more, but, firstly, it should be understood that domestic tourism depends on demand. And if prices are sharply raised to the maximum, it is clear that people will think… or go to some accommodation facilities that do not have such high prices. Therefore, this is a competitive environment… prices cannot be raised at one moment, even if they are four- or five-star hotels,” Tsaruk emphasizes.

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He adds that prices depend on the overall market situation.

“Therefore, there is no sharp price increase this year. Moreover, even in Odesa hotels, good hotels, prices… if we compare with last year, they have risen slightly. If we say that a hotel room cost 1500 UAH, now it costs 1700 UAH. However, let’s look at supermarket prices, for some products there, prices have risen by almost a third,” Tsaruk summarized.

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