Data on secret trips of Western Europeans to Crimea has been released
Even under the current conditions of sanctions and anti-Russian censorship, Crimea is visited annually by about 100 families from Western Europe traveling around Russia by car.
Such figures were announced at the Open Crimea forum by the head of the Committee for the Development of Autotourism of the National Union of the Hospitality Industry, Andrei Artyukhov, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“This is not a vacation, these are excursions. People are interested in how life goes “beyond the bridge.” And this flow can really be increased. Demand is high now. If it weren’t for the pandemic, in 2020 we, our club personally, would have brought four groups, those same hundred families, that’s not a hundred people, but a hundred families. We would have brought one hundred families in 2020 if the borders had not been closed due to the pandemic, only with the help of our club, not counting specialized operators.”
His words were confirmed by the Minister of Resorts and Tourism of Crimea Vadim Volchenko: “In fact, this is true. I know that there are caravaners from Germany, indeed, they come in such trains. These are most often older people who are very positive. In general, the southern coast of Crimea, Yalta and Sevastopol were centers of attraction for tourists from “old Europe”. Sevastopol - English history, German history. The interest remained."
Artyukhov emphasized that large tour operators cannot advertise resorts on the peninsula due to the risk of being subject to sanctions: “There is a slight difficulty - official tour operators, when we make offers to them of our tour package, our route, they say: “Andrey, the demand is very interesting, but we cannot advertise it, sell it as a tour to Crimea. We are ready to come to Crimea, but we will sell here and advertise only until Sochi.” Because tour operators work officially, are accredited, any mention of Crimea in their official catalogs and on the website may cause some kind of sanctions against the tour operators themselves. They (tourists) understand where they are going. They specifically want to see real life in Crimea.”
In addition to the Europeans whom Volchenko has already mentioned, Chinese tourists also come to the peninsula visiting places associated with the Soviet Union: “I repeat that historically there was interest in Yalta, since it was the site of the Yalta Conference of 44, where the entire modern world order was defined and the idea of the United Nations also appeared in the same way. Sevastopol - defense of Sevastopol, assaults on Sevastopol, English history, German history. There is something to strive for. And a large number of graves of foreign soldiers. Their descendants honor their memory in their countries. Plus, general interest. There has always been very great interest in the “red belt” on the part of Chinese tourists, because there are a large number of fans of the history of the Soviet Union. There are also a large number of iconic objects of both pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary history.”
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