Sports and Tourism Minister: thanks to President’s decision on visa-free travel, many foreigners visit Belarus despite sanctions
Thanks to the decision of the Head of State, a significant number of foreign citizens come to Belarus despite the sanctions – as noted by Sports and Tourism Minister Sergei Kovalchuk during a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers focusing on the problems of tourism development in the republic, chaired by PM Roman Golovchenko
“Despite the sanctions, a significant number of foreign citizens are coming to us. I think this is all thanks to the decision of the Head of State on visa-free travel. The health resort business accounts for 49 percent of tourism exports, while the hotel business accounts for 30 percent,” Mr. Kovalchuk explained.
According to him, the largest flow of tourists comes from Russia. Co-operation with China is also developing.
In turn, Belarus’ First Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Kartun said that the ministry is now working on updating and developing sectoral strategies for 10 years ahead.
“The tourism industry is no exception. There is an existing strategy until 2035. We have come to the point where it needs to be updated, taking into account modern global trends. We have already defined our strategic goals in the National Strategy for Sustainable Development until 2040. For tourism, the goal is to reach 5 percent of GDP. In fact, the industry should grow more than two and a half times. Now it is a little over 2 percent,” Mr. Kartun said, noting that Belarus adds at least 15 percent annually in terms of exports of tourist services.
In addition, he said, an important task is to make tourists stay in Belarus as long as possible.
“On average, a tourist stays in Belarus for 4-5 days. In turn, our citizens go on holiday and stay there for an average of eight days. It will be good if we raise this indicator in terms of the time spent in our country. An equally important task is to interest tourists so that they want to buy here as much as possible,” the First Deputy Economy Minister emphasised.
