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Tourism
Alternative routes to tourist treasure
Niche markets offer Ukraine’s underfunded holiday industry access to international tourism dollars
Paul Johnson, Business Ukraine
Volume 4, issue 6 June 2010 Anyone who has visited Turkey’s all-inclusive hotels will be well aware of the potential to do something wonderful with Ukraine’s southern Black Sea coastline and Crimean peninsula. Likewise, anyone who has spent time at the popular ski resorts of Poland and Slovakia cannot fail but to have mused over the enormous opportunities for Ukraine’s own Carpathian resorts. In reality, the domestic tourism sector remains a story of isolated entrepreneurial successes amid a sea of stagnation. If Ukraine’s neglected tourism sector is ever to perform to its potential it may first have to identify its strengths and develop in the niche sectors where it enjoys comparative advantages.
Emerging economies have been at the heart of the tourism industry’s remarkable expansion over the past 30 years – in 1990 developing nations accounted for 31% of global market share, but by 2008 this figure had risen to 45%, while during the same period overall global revenues had more than doubled to close on USD 100 billion annually. Countries like Spain, Greece, Portugal and Turkey saw their economies transformed by domestic tourism booms, but while Croatia, Poland, Georgia and even Azerbaijan advertise themselves on CNN as the next generation of tourist destinations, Ukraine appears to have missed the boat again. In many ways this failure by successive Ukrainian governments to identify tourism as a potentially game-changing strategic focus for the country illustrates just how parochial much of the thinking has been in senior government circles for the past two decades.
There are signs that this may now be changing: In part no doubt thanks to the looming influence of Euro 2012, government officials have recently begun working proactively to bring international hotel chains and construction companies into the country in a bid to get Ukraine’s accommodation infrastructure up to scratch ahead of the June 2010 kick-off. Meanwhile, airport projects connected to Euro 2012 contain apace and the country’s hotel sector can finally boast a smattering of major international brand names. However, the Herculean task of bringing Ukraine’s national infrastructure up to modern standards may in reality take decades to achieve. In the meantime the domestic tourism industry will have to seek out niche markets if it wishes to remain competitive both domestically and internationally against rival destinations that can offer better roads, better airports, better value and better service standards.
Sex tourism and Chornobyl: Ukrainian tourism’s image problems
Selling Ukraine as a tourist destination often means confronting the negative stereotypes which continue to abound about the country. Unfortunately the only things many potential customers in the West associate with Ukrainian tourism are Chornobyl and the sex trade. The enduring infamy of Chornobyl has proved enough to secure this unlikely tourist attraction a place in just about every top ten list of alternative tourism destinations to have been published in the past decade, but the fact that this ghoulish destination attracts more visitors and media coverage than almost all of Ukraine’s more appealing landmarks is a cause for national concern.
Likewise the growth of the country’s sex tourism industry has been one of the more problematic results of the open door visa policy adopted in the wake of the 2004 Orange Revolution. The move to drop visa regulations has certainly had a major impact on the number of people visiting Ukraine, with figures rising from around 6 million in 2000 to a high of over 25 million in 2008. It is not clear how many of these visitors would fit into the ‘sex tourist’ category, but there is no escaping the fact that the sex tourism sector has mushroomed in the five years since the ending of short-term visa requirements. Luckily there is much more to the domestic tourism market than disaster areas and prostitution.
Gaming tourism: Becoming the Vegas of the East
The wholesale banning in summer 2009 of the Ukrainian gaming industry was one of the more surprising and arbitrary rulings of Yulia Tymoshenko’s second term as Prime Minister. Many applauded this as a bold assault on an industry which had become a cancer reaching into every façade of Ukrainian daily life. Others were aghast at the sudden destruction of an industry which had generated millions of tax dollars and provided employment to tens of thousands. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the decision, almost as soon as the casino doors closed speculation had begun over the possibility of creating a few selected gambling zones on the country’s tourist periphery along the lines of similar plans already in progress in Russia. Ukraine could certainly sell itself as a gambling destination: It is easy to reach from a range of Asian and European destinations and yet retains a certain exotica. The country also has a ‘Wild East’ heritage that is very much in harmony with the best traditions of Las Vegas, while its judicial location beyond the bureaucratic reach of the EU and the clunking fist of the Kremlin would also allow for the kind of flexibility that might appeal to casino owners and gamblers alike.
Possible exotic destinations for a Ukrainian Vegas include Serpent Island, a tiny Ukrainian possession with ties to the Achilles legends of ancient Greece which lies just off the Danube delta. Serpent Island was claimed for Ukraine from Romania by the victorious Stalin regime in the immediate aftermath of WWII. In more recent times the island has been at the centre of a maritime boundary dispute between Ukraine and Romania which saw the Ukrainian authorities build up the island’s infrastructure in order to bolster their claim to large swathes of mineral wealth hidden in the seabed of the surrounding Black Sea. The ruse failed and a February 2009 international court ruling finally found largely in favour of the Romanian claim, dealing Kyiv a costly diplomatic defeat. However, the island could still provide Ukraine with a significant dividend by serving as an Achilles themed casino resort complete with Greek temples and blackjack oracles.
Eco-tourism: Playing on the Wild East theme
Ukraine has long suffered from association with the Chornbyl disaster, which has done much to overshadow the country’s more historic reputation as Europe’s land of breadbasket plenty. This agricultural wealth means there is huge scope for eco-tourism in today’s Ukraine, where a lack of industrial activity over the past two decades has unwittingly done much to safeguard some of the last great wildernesses in Europe. The Ukrainian eco-tourism sector is already growing and eco themes are seen as so important to the tourism push that the popular 2008 initiative to identify the seven wonders of modern Ukraine was soon followed by a similar initiative to identify seven natural wonders of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains offer perhaps the widest range of eco-tourism options, while Crimea’s diversity can provide a seemingly endless list of natural attractions within a startling small radius. Both offer a wealth of unique ecological environments that make them highly marketable among carbon-conscious Western audiences looking for something a little bit different. Ukraine’s spa resorts and ancient waterways are also tailor made for marketing towards Western clienteles, with the major stumbling block remaining the often poor service standards which Western guests all too often encounter while in-country. With green themes likely to remain fashionable for the foreseeable future throughout Europe, we can expect to witness growth in this sector for many years to come.
Medical tourism: Competitive rates and relaxed regulations
In recent years one of the biggest growth segments in the Ukrainian tourism market has been health tourism. The number of visitors looking to take advantage of Ukraine’s competitively priced medical services has more than doubled in the past three years with everything from dental procedures and cosmetic surgery to life-saving operations and transplants proving popular among Western customers attracted by the relatively low prices which Ukrainian clinics can offer for European standard healthcare services. Ukraine benefits from its location on the doorstep of EU markets and also offers a European environment alongside English-speaking staff. A similar trend is also underway in the Baltic States, but Ukrainian medical tourism operators are often able to offer the most competitive rates in Europe.
Many customers are attracted by the availability in Ukraine of procedures which are not covered by EU health services. Recovering alcoholics from the UK have recently emerged as a new market for Ukrainian health tourism – thousands have traveled to Ukraine over the past two years in order to have implants which will make them violently ill if they consume alcohol. Such treatments are often restricted by the UK’s National Health Service and are either prohibitively expensive or unavailable in the private healthcare sector.
Totalitarianism tourism: Cashing in or commemorating?
Ukraine’s 20th century experience at the hands of both Stalin and Hitler make it the obvious place for memorials to the horrors of totalitarianism, but while Poland has turned its death camps into lasting memorials which attract millions of visitors every year, there is almost nowhere in Ukraine where future generations can come to pay their respects or learn from the tragic errors of the past. Memorial museums dedicated to the victims of totalitarianism could help bring millions of school children to Ukraine annually while positioning the country in a politically progressive light. It would send a powerful message out about modern Ukrainian attitudes towards authoritarian government and help shape more sympathetic international perceptions of the country.
The fact that activities in this direction have so far been restricted to the Holodomor Memorial Complex in Kyiv is largely due to the reluctance of modern Ukrainian officials to disturb the sleeping dogs of Ukraine’s bloody totalitarian experience. Many also recognise that while totalitarianism very nearly destroyed Ukraine, it also made the modern Ukrainian state. There are perhaps simply too many modern Ukrainians walking around in dead men’s shoes for any debate about the epoch to provide closure. It is no coincidence that the two subjects to have proved the most explosive in modern Ukrainian society – the Holodomor famine of the 1930s and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of the 1940s, both date from the height of the totalitarian period.
One obvious potential site for a memorial complex would be Hitler’s former headquarters on the outskirts of Vinnitsia. The German leader set up his HQ in Ukraine in the summer of 1942 and commanded much of the Battle of Stalingrad from this forward command post. Since independence local officials have repeatedly refused to allow private investors to transform the site into a memorial complex, citing fears that it could become a shrine for neo-Nazis. Instead, it remains in a state of ruin and often subject to fascist graffiti – a fitting monument to Ukraine’s lingering sense of historical denial.
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