Ukraine to drop visa requirement?

[Ulysses]

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine's official tourism body has asked the government to drop visa requirements for tour groups from the European Union ( news - web sites), the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia in an effort to attract visitors, an official said Friday.

If the request from the Tourism Adminstration is approved, tourists who coke in groups from those countries will no longer need visas, said Pavlo Prylypko, an official in the administration's regional policy section. He said he did not know how long the approval process would take.

Last year, about six million foreign tourists visited Ukraine, the Interfax news agency said, citing Tourism Adminstration chief Valeriy Tsybukh.

Ukraine's economy has declined since the France-sized nation of 48 million became independent when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Authorities hope to increase tourism revenue by drawing more foreigners to resorts on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and mineral waters in the Carpathian mountains.

[fairbro]

Do you know if they have changed the law, and now allow US tourists to visit for 8 days without getting a visa first, or to simply get the visa on arrival at the airport?

[hanja-be]

Fairbro,
visum still needed - to avoid problems on the airport you have to go and get your visa at the local ambassy.

[fairbro]

What's so hard about getting a visa? Well, first of all you have to get an invitation. Then, after waiting a week for the invitation, and spending $50 just for the invitation, you spend another$100-$200 dollars for the visa. Then you have to spend another $50 for Fedex both ways, because the embassy doesn't accept regular US mail. Oh, BTW, you have to deposit money at the hotel to induce them to send you the invitation, another $50-$100. Oh, another BTW, you better make sure you can get a plane flight there at the time you applied for on the visa, or else you've lost all that money for nothing. Oh, and you better make sure that the hotel you booked has space for the time on your visa, and they will probably find a lot of extra charges anyway. And after all that expense, when you get there, you can only hope your business goes as planned, that the whole thing wasn't just a scam to start with.

I'm not trying to hide. Looks to me like the Ukraine is trying to hide.

[fairbro]

It seems to me (if I were in charge of things in Ukraine) I would make it easier for Westerners to come to Ukraine. Americans like things very easy. Drive-in food, drive-in banking, etc. Drive-in Visa. If Ukraine stops trying to get $200 extra in visa billings, and stop making getting the visa a big hassle, then many more tourists would visit there. What would Ukraine like better - to have $200 from a few tourists or to have many tourists spending $2000 each?

Actually it's kind of ironic. By making it difficult to get a visa, they remove thousands (no, millions - compare Poland) of potential tourists from visiting and billions of dollars that those tourists would bring into the country.

And just the fact that Ukraine has a 40% tax rate means I will never open a business there. Why should I, when Russia has a 11% flat-tax?

Politicans think they help their friends and their countrymen, and they fail to see the nose in front of their face. I suppose the only stupider politicians are the ones here in Washington, DC. The last intelligent politician left DC sometime in the 90's.

[terrier]

Plenty of countries are far more friendly with their visa requirements without losing their culture. Ukraine is losing tremendous revinue with their ludicrous hotel prices and hostile government workers. And as for the position that 'poor travellers shouldn't come to Ukraine,' I've seen far more poor travellers who were respectful of local culture than I've seen with rich tourists. Ukraine's current policy is almost guaranteeing that the ONLY reason most people visit the country is for the pretty girls, because travellers going around Europe who might want to see what Ukraine (still a relatively mysterious and misunderstood country to most western Europeans and Americans) has to offer will just not bother jumping through hoops to satisfy some bureaucrat when Poland, Hungary, Czech republic, and Slovakia are so much more accessable. It might make some people happy to keep Ukraine as their little secret...and part of me can understand that...but independent travellers who might not have a specific, anal-retentive plan when visiting a country are turned off by the residual miasma of soviet bureaucracy.

Now, as for having something to hide...LOL...that's a pretty sad argument. Just because someone doesn't want to decide if they want to go to Harkov or Lviv until they get into the country hardly means they are planning some criminal venture. I wouldn't want a government inspector being able to walk inside my house and check up on me whenever they felt like it, even if I was 100% law-abiding. It's just annoying and creates an air of suspicion and paranoia. Even though it was a LITTLE easier in some ways (and a little harder in others) to get around Ukraine once I got there, the impression I got before I arrived can and does turn most people off. Why bother? I'm a travel writer, and I do the best I can to allay people's ill-impressions of Ukraine and eastern Europe in general, but I still have to be honest about the little annoyances that just don't exist in some neighboring countries, and which could be easily solved.

[Irinka]

Good post!