On Sunday, Crimean Resorts and Tourism Minister Vadim Volchenko announced that up to 150,000 tourists were planning to spend their winter holidays on the peninsula. That's according to Sputnik International.
"Having at least 150,000 [tourists planning to arrive in Crimea] — that is good, but we have the potential to at least double this flow," Aksyonov said at a meeting of the Crimean government.
Aksyonov instructed Volchenko to reach out to owners of local mini-hotels that are ready to accommodate guests for the holidays but are not officially registered as hotels, and explain to them that they will be the ones to lose money in this situation.
The resorts and tourism minister, in turn, noted that the proportion of foreign tourists who are planning to come to Crimea for their winter holidays had climbed from 5 percent to 8.4 percent year-on-year, according to data provided by the online service Biletix that is based on the number of Simferopol-bound flights booked from abroad.
Volchenko added that the top five countries accounting for the largest number of bookings included Belarus, Germany, Israel, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Meanwhile, an updated travel advisory of the US State Department revealed on Monday that US citizens were no longer advised to "reconsider" traveling to Russia. Instead, they are urged to "exercise increased caution due to terrorism, harassment, and the arbitrary enforcement of local laws," with Crimea being mentioned among "high-risk areas."
Chairman of the regional parliament's commission on tourism Alexey Chernyak, in turn, expressed his confidence in comments to Sputnik that US citizens would continue to visit the peninsula despite such recommendations.
"Everyone realized a long time ago that it is nothing but propaganda and lies, and they do not pay any attention to it… Foreign citizens, including those from the United States, have been visiting and will continue to visit Crimea, despite recommendations issued by various departments. No one cares about the categories in which Crimea and Russia in general have been placed. We will be glad to welcome US tourists for New Year holidays," Chernyak said.
Chernyak added that travel agencies already had applications from foreign citizens, including from the United States, to visit Crimea in 2019.
According to Crimean authorities, more than 6.6 million tourists have visited the peninsula since the beginning of the year as of December 7, while in 2017, the tourist flow amounted to 5.2 million people.
