Russia's Crimea expects record number of visitors with other tourist destinations closed due to coronavirus restrictions

23 Mar, 2021 14:59

The number of tourists visiting Russia’s Crimea in 2021 is projected to reach at least eight million people, according to the region’s State Council’s Chairman of the Committee for Tourism, Resorts and Sports Alexey Chernyak.

“Last year a lot of people of different ages visited Crimea for the first time, and were not disappointed at all,” Chernyak said on Tuesday, adding that "this year the number of visitors will also be high despite the fact that Turkey has also opened for tourism, and some European states are planning to open [borders] from April.”

According to Chernyak, there has been a revision of the attitude towards Crimea as a tourist spot in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Nearly 1.5 million people visited the peninsula in July 2020 when the region finally reopened its tourism sector after the coronavirus-related restrictions were lifted. August became an even hotter tourist season amid the rush for post-lockdown seaside vacations, local authorities said.

In the past several years, Crimea’s tourism sector has flourished as the Black Sea peninsula enjoyed record numbers of visitors in the post-Soviet era. In 2018, 6.8 million people visited the region, and in 2019 the number rose to 7.4 million.

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