MOSCOW, March 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Crimea needs a strategy of developing its tourism industry, Alexander Radkov, the head of the Russian Federal Tourism Agency (Rosturism), said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta which the daily is going to publish on Tuesday.
“Crimea has just been incorporated into Russia. A revision of its property is under way and new bodies of regional power, including those responsible for tourism, are taking shape,” Radkov said, adding the agency had opened a temporary office in the Crimean capital Simferopol to coordinate its work on the peninsula.
“The regional tourist authorities in cooperation with the federal center should draft a strategy of Crimea’s development as a tourist destination. When drafted, this fundamental document will make it clear for us what tasks should be targeted in the first place: infrastructure, transport, etc,” Radkov said.
“It would be impossible to draw up the strategy of Crimea’s development without participation of the Transport Ministry, the Energy Ministry and the Ministry of Regional Development because finance would come from various sources. That is why ministries, agencies and public organizations are creating an inter-agency working group,” Radkov said, noting that the volume of investments would become clear after an audit had been carried out and the strategy drafted. “On the whole, Crimea is a good and functioning resort. I hope that its problems, which other resorts in Russia also have, will not be a global obstacle to tourism and that the upcoming tourist season will be successful,” the head of the Russian tourism agency said.
According to the Russian Federal Tourism Agency, six million tourists, of whom about 2 million were Russians, visited Crimea last year. Half of those Russians arrived by car. All the others used trains and planes to reach Crimea.
Meanwhile, the Russian Health Ministry said that it considered Crimea to be a perfect place for rehabilitation of TB patients. told a news conference on Monday on the occasion of World Tuberculosis Day.
Lyalya Gabbasova, a Russian health minister’s aide, told a news conference held on the occasion of the World Tuberculosis Day on Monday that Crimea was called a “union health resort” in Soviet days where people from all parts of the USSR took rest and improved their health. The peninsula had a developed resort infrastructure.
“We should see what has been left of this old infrastructure and we are going to use it if it is possible,” Gabasova said, adding Crimea had unique climatic conditions for TB patients.
Tereza Kasayeva, the deputy head of department responsible for medical aid and health resorts, said that Crimea’s phthisiological service would develop along the same principles as in other parts of Russia.
“We are going to adapt it to Russian standards. Crimea has excellent conditions for treating subsided forms of tuberculosis,” Kasayeva stressed.