The Ukrainian Agency for Tourism Development has launched an extraordinary campaign: it filmed a documentary showing how tourism industry workers are surviving the war.
The film “We Are Here – Brave Hearts of Ukraine” features ordinary Ukrainians who worked in tourism before the war and are now at the front. One of them is Roman Sinitsyn, who organized tours around the country. Now, he works for an organization that helps soldiers. At the same time, he collects remnants of military equipment. He sends them to the National Museum in Kyiv, and he wants to create a Museum of War in the future.
The head of the Ukrainian Tourism Development Agency, Mariana Oleskiv, says her organization is already working on plans to restore infrastructure, hotels, and cultural monuments.
Before the Russian invasion, foreign tourists mostly visited Odesa, Kyiv, and Lviv and vacationed on the Black Sea, the Carpathians, and the Danube Delta. In 2019 there were 14 million visitors, most from Poland, Turkey, Israel, Germany, and the United States. In 2013, there were 26 million tourists, but most were Russians.
